


rich kid, asshole (paint me as a villain)

by gly13



Series: angsty rich boys [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Language, Found Family, Happy Ending, M/M, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, angsty teens gotta angst, daddy issues: the fic, excessive inclusion of rich people tings, negligent parents, one long private school check, they're all rich and sad, they're teenagers they swear a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 79,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21773824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gly13/pseuds/gly13
Summary: "You leave in a week, Renjun. Time to brush up on your English."Renjun, son of the wealthiest family in China, is sent to an overseas boarding school and it turns out dealing with the new language, no friends, and Jaemin Na isn't so easy without daddy's resources.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Series: angsty rich boys [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586260
Comments: 251
Kudos: 1229
Collections: 1, ’00 FIC FEST: ROUND ONE





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> massive thanks to admin tea for being the loveliest person ever and to my prompter for the prompt because i had so much fun with it <3
> 
> title from IV. Sweatpants by Childish Gambino
> 
> if you aren't familiar with the british schooling system then you can find a very quick explanation in the end notes  
> also like we don't actually have academic decathlon in england but i couldn't resist so just pretend we do thanks <3
> 
> [the official rich angsty boys playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jJGoUCTdd9E5GikJn5Xj6?si=lCDQ0zDEReiyZFhlRhiN2w)
> 
> prompt #009
> 
> enjoy~

Renjun shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets to protect them from the cold. A quick cursory glance behind him told him that Dejun and Kunhang were still close behind and he faced forward again. He pushed his way through the line of people, ignoring the shouts and curses aimed at him, until he was at the front of the line.

The bouncer eyed him dubiously, took in his height and stature and snorted. Renjun bristled.

“Sorry, kid,” he said in a gruff voice, laced with barely-concealed amusement. “Gotta wait your turn in line to be told you’re not old enough.”

Renjun tutted, and took pleasure in how offended the bouncer grew. He heard Kunhang suppress a snigger behind him.

He dug through his pocket, and pulled out a thick wad of yuan bills, the exact value of which he didn’t know and fanned it out in his hand. The bouncer’s eyes widened into saucers.

“You let me and my friends in and you get to keep all this,” he said, keeping his voice steely. “You don’t and we take it down to the club two blocks from here and I get you fired by tomorrow morning for making this place lose out on some serious business.”

The bouncer nodded quickly. “Yes, of course, sir,” he said, and Renjun almost laughed at how quickly and how much he’d changed. Money would do that to the poor, he thought with disdain. The bouncer unclipped the velvet rope and stood aside to let them pass. “Right this way, sir.”

Renjun stalked past him, thrusting the cash into his hands and not turning around to see how he dropped to the floor to scramble after the fallen notes. Kunhang and Dejun trailed in after him, and Renjun didn’t have to turn around to know they looked worried.

He made his way easily through the club, pushing past sweaty dancers and drunk slobs. They reached the bar and Renjun told Dejun and Kunhang to find them a table while he got them drinks.

He shoved through the crowd and ignored the grunts he received in complaint. He slid a few notes across the bar top, which caught one of the bartenders’ attention easily and she abandoned another customer to come and serve him.

“Start a tab,” he said. “Surname Huang.”

Her eyes widened upon hearing his name, making the connection, and she scurried the bills up, shoving them into her pocket.

“Of course, Sir. What drinks would you like, Sir?”

He listed them out and she set about making them, arranging them neatly onto a tray not a minute later.

“I hope they are to your taste, Mr Huang.”

Renjun didn’t respond, and instead picked the tray up and turned away. It was easy enough to spot his friends, where they were sat at a table at the back of the room, talking.

He placed the tray down and they each looked at the array of glasses.

“What,” Renjun said as he let himself fall into one of the seats.

“This is a lot, Renjun,” Dejun said in a cautious voice. “We have school tomorrow, you know.”

“Yes, I do know,” Renjun snapped. At Dejun’s look he took a deep breath. “Sorry. You don’t have to drink if you don’t want to but just don’t stop me.”

Kunhang and Dejun exchanged a look that Renjun couldn’t be bothered to decipher. They each took a shot glass in their hand.

Renjun held his in the centre of the table and they clinked theirs against his, the three of them knocking back their drinks in a nearly synchronised movement.

“Another?” Renjun asked.

Two drinks later and Renjun was buzzed, teetering on that edge between happily tipsy and properly drunk. One more drink might fully push him over into  _ I’ll regret this tomorrow _ territory.

He reached for another glass.

“Why so desperate to get drunk all of a sudden?” Kunhang asked, his grin lopsided and showing too much teeth.

And just like that, Renjun wasn’t in this hot, stuffy club anymore; he was in his bedroom, burying his head beneath his duvet. And he was no longer overwhelmed with the sounds of shitty dance music and shitty singing, but rather clinging to them in an attempt to drown out the shouting that was carried all the way up the staircase.

His father’s voice, cruel and imposing. His mother’s: shrill and enraged. Doors slamming. More shouting. Renjun buried his head further into his duvet.

He downed his shot.

“Just felt like it,” he said, and slid off his seat. “Come on. Let’s dance.”

The two of them followed him onto the dance floor, but not without exchanging another one of those looks.

Renjun pushed through to more or less the centre of the throng of people, and let his drink-addled brain, and the strong beat of whatever song they were playing take his mind away from his bedroom and the shouting.

Kunhang groaned, shifting even more of his weight onto Dejun, which made all three of them stumble where they were linked together and depending on each other to stand. Dejun, the most sober of the group, was in the centre, but even he was having trouble and clearly struggling to judge his steps.They pushed their way out of the club entrance, and Renjun could vaguely make out the shape of his car and did his best to steer the three of them towards it.

“Master Huang,” Yixing said, getting out of the car to open the door. “Your father enquired after your whereabouts.”

“And what did you tell him?” Renjun asked, even as all his words slurred off into each other. He trusted that Yixing had been working for him long enough to know what he meant to say.

“That you were simply blowing off some steam with your friends, Young Master.” Yixing shut the car door as the three of them shuffled in.

Renjun laughed bitterly. “He knows what that means.”

Yixing inclined his head, looking back at him through the rear-view mirror. “That may be so.”

Renjun laughed again, the alcohol in his blood making it more carefree than it should have been. “Thank you, Yixing. For doing what you could.”

“Mine?” Dejun’s voice came from next to Renjun.

Yixing shook his head, solemn, and then busied himself with starting the car.

Renjun rested a hand on Dejun’s shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly.

“To Master Xiao’s residence first?”

Renjun nodded, and then found himself shifting sideways to where Dejun was sandwiched between him and Kunhang. Drowsiness tugged at his eyelids, and he drifted away into unconsciousness where the shouting couldn’t reach him.

“Shut up,” Kunhang whispered to him.

“You stepped on my foot, you fucker,” Renjun hissed back.

It was dark in the house, eerily quiet in such a big place, and the two of them gripped each other tightly as they crept through the garden towards the back entrance of the Huang estate. Yixing had dropped them off, and then gone to park the car in the garages so it was just the two of them.

Renjun fished around in his jacket pocket for his key card and scanned it against the electric lock on the kitchen door. It beeped too loudly for the quiet of the night, and Renjun pushed the door open.

The kitchen was empty, and the clocks on the series of ovens read  _ 03:49 _ . The pair of them both toed their shoes off and walked through the kitchen in their socks, too far gone to search for house slippers.

Kunhang groaned again, right next to Renjun’s ear and the stench of alcohol made Renjun’s nose wrinkle, even though he knew it was worse on him.

“We have to wake up in like two hours,” he said and Renjun pat his head sympathetically.

“Just hole yourself up one of the empty classrooms and nap,” Renjun said, feeling guilty. “I’ll take care of it for you." They stopped at the corridor that led to the servants’ quarters. “Thanks for coming with me tonight.” He cracked a smile. “I’ll see you in two hours.”

“See you, Renjunnie.”

Kunhang went off down the corridor and Renjun watched him go before he jolted himself out of it and turned to find his way back to his own room. He took the servants’ staircase: the smaller one hidden from sight. He stumbled several times as he climbed them, and almost fell flat on his face a few more as he made his way down the corridor to his room.

He didn’t bother with changing out of his clothes, or brushing his teeth. He just about had the presence of mind to shrug out of his jacket and fling it somewhere on his bedroom floor before he flopped himself onto his bed, and let sleep take him.

Renjun slid into his seat at the back of the classroom, his head still ringing from the night before, and bedded his head on his arms atop his desk. His tie was irritating him, so he pulled at it until it came loose from his throat and left it lying next to him on his desk. He ignored the eyes of his classmates boring into him and closed his eyes, hoping for a nap before the first lesson of the day.

“…Perhaps you can tell us, Mr Huang?” A voice jerked Renjun from where he had been dozing.

He blinked slowly, pulling himself to sit upright.

“Tell you what, sir,” he said, still blinking away the cloudiness in his eyes and mind.

“How to find the integral of this function,” Mr Wu said from where he stood at the front of the classroom, tapping his foot impatiently. “Or perhaps you are too hungover to answer.”

A snicker ran through the class.

Renjun’s eyes scanned the board momentarily, his eyes burning, before he fixed his gaze back on his teacher. “Three  _ x _ squared plus six  _ x _ to the power of negative a half, plus  _ c _ ,” he said, and hoped he sounded as bored as he felt. “Not too hungover to answer. But I am too hungover to deal with your bullshit. So if you could keep it to a minimum, I’d appreciate it.”

Renjun revelled in the audible gasps and stunned silence of his classmates, and even more so in the scandalised, furious scowl on Wu’s face.

“How dare you? You insolent little brat—"

“You really want to be jobless that badly? In this economy? Really?” Renjun said, looking at his nails and keeping his tone nonchalant.

Wu glowered but remained silent and Renjun felt triumph fill his chest.

“So, here’s the deal. You can either let me continue to sleep at the back of your classroom in your boring as fuck lessons, or you can start sleeping on the streets at night. When making your choice, please try to remember whose money it is that pays your wages.”

Renjun shifted so that the  _ Huang _ stitched above the front pocket of his uniform was clearly visible. Renjun took vicious pleasure in the anger evident on Wu’s face. And he was having so much fun, he thought he might take it a little further.

“You do know who my father is, right, sir?” Mocking oozed from his words and Renjun had to suppress a grin at how Wu’s face contorted even further.

“Yes,” Wu gritted out. “I’ll let you sleep.”

“Thanks, sir,” Renjun finally allowed his grin to take over his face as he met Wu’s eyes for a moment before nestling his head back down atop his desk.

Wu continued to drone once more about mathematics and Renjun was satisfied at the wobble beneath his voice. At least his father was good for something, he thought. And he let his eyes slip shut.

“Heard what happened with you and Mr Wu today, Renjun,” Dejun said, flopping down onto the chair at Renjun’s desk with a can of some fruit drink in his hand. “My history class was buzzing with it before they realised I’d walked in. They shut up pretty quickly after they saw me, though.”

Renjun groaned from where he was lying at the foot of his bed. “Sorry. He was just really pissing me off. And then I had this fucking splitting headache—”

“And whose fault was that?” Kunhang said from his position at the top of Renjun’s bed.

“Mine, mine, I know. But he’s had something like that coming for a while. He always talks to me like I’m stupid.”

“Maybe because you’re always asleep in his classes.”

“Not always,” Renjun bit out. “Just most of the time. And it’s not my fault his voice makes me sleepy because he’s so horrifically boring.”

Dejun sighed. “It’s fine. All of my history class are dicks anyway. But if word had gotten back to your father—"

“I know,” Renjun sighed. “I just wasn’t having a good one this morning.”

“It was kind of funny though,” Kunhang said, and Renjun didn’t have to look to see he was grinning.

Dejun snorted. “Yeah, it was.”

“Like, you remember that substitute that tried to give Renjun a detention two years ago?” Kunhang said through laughter.

“Oh, shut up,” Renjun groaned, hiding his face behind his hands.

“The one that told him he was the Devil’s child or the one who fell in the swimming pool?”

“The chemistry one.”

Dejun guffawed loudly. “The one Renjun almost set on fire?”

“It was an accident!” Renjun defended, though he doubted it was heard over their raucous laughter. Renjun couldn’t help the way he smiled either.

Renjun’s ringtone cut through them from where it lay on his desk and Dejun threw it at him. Renjun suppressed a groan when he saw it was his assistant and answered it.

“Huang Renjun speaking,” he said, and kicked his foot into Kunhang’s side when he sniggered.

“Renjun, I’m calling to remind you that you have an English test, a literature essay, and two pieces of maths homework due tomorrow. Also, please remember that your entire family are set to attend a gala tomorrow evening to inform the press of the new merger.”

“Right,” Renjun said, glad she had reminded him because he had forgotten every single thing she had just said. “I’ll get on that.”

And then he hung up.

“You wanna go shopping?”

Dejun looked at him too knowingly but smiled anyway and lifted himself off of Renjun’s chair. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go. I need a new coat anyway.”

They walked around the shop, laughing loudly and perusing the items. Renjun grabbed anything that looked decent from its place on the wracks and threw them over his shoulder. If his dad didn’t care enough about a night of underage drinking at a nightclub, maybe he’d pay attention to his credit card bill this month.

A voice at the back of his head that sounded annoyingly like Sicheng told him that the way he was behaving was unruly, but Renjun drowned it out by tossing another hoodie onto the pile.

Dejun was behaving in a similar, if not a little more conservative, fashion. He had bought his new coat already, and it sat neatly at the bottom of the Saint Laurent bag hanging from the crook of his elbow.

Renjun caught Kunhang’s eyes linger just a moment too long on a pair of Balenciaga shoes and quickly asked one of the attendants if they had them in his size.

Kunhang waited until she went off to fetch them before he said, “you don’t need to get them for me, Renjunnie. I don’t need new shoes.”

“But you  _ want  _ a new pair of shoes,” Renjun said easily. “And  _ I _ want you to know that I will get you anything you want.”

“So you can piss off your dad?” Kunhang raised an eyebrow, but his tone was joking.

“A bit,” Renjun admitted. “But mainly because you’re my friend; basically my brother. You know this.”

“I know,” Kunhang said. “It’s just a bit hard to ask sometimes. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

They resumed shopping and when they finally went to pay, it was with a mountain of stuff that they could barely carry among the three of them. A few of the staff members took the items off their hands and put them into bags for them. Renjun handed them his card, shiny and black, and input his pin lazily.

“I’ll call Yixing to bring the car around,” he said as they exited the store. He handed the bags he was carrying off to one of the two security details assigned to him, and watched as Dejun did the same to the other.

He had just held his phone up to his ear, Kunhang and Dejun talking about something or other where they were stood just in front of him when he heard a laugh he recognised easily and he turned to face Xu Minghao and Wen Junhui standing a few metres away, their uniforms for their rival high school crisp and without a hair out of place.

Renjun could feel the animosity in their glares, and returned them with one of his own. He felt Kunhang and Dejun take their places either side of him.

“Well, if it isn’t the two disgraces of corporate China and their dog,” Minghao said, eyes moving across them and ultimately falling to Kunhang on Renjun’s right. “Or would donkey be a better descriptor?” He added.

Renjun’s hand found Kunhang’s wrist and held it tightly.

Renjun registered the car pulling up next to them on the street and Yixing getting out.

“Put the bags in the car,” he said, without taking his eyes off of Minghao. He heard his security personnel follow the order. “You’re brave showing your faces here after the league tables were posted last week.”

He relished the anger that flashed across Minghao’s face.

“Those mean nothing,” he gritted out.

“And I suppose your father said the same thing?”

Minghao growled.

“Thought so.”

“Fuck this,” Junhui said, glancing at Minghao only for a second before he stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. “I’ve had enough. No more talking.”

“Afraid you won’t be able to keep up, Junhui?”

“If you won’t shut up then I’ll make you,” he said, and started forwards with Minghao right behind him.

Without a word of discussion, Renjun, Kunhang, and Dejun all started towards the car where Yixing was already holding the door open for them. They flung themselves into the backseat as the two security guards started to crowd into Minghao and Junhui’s space.

Yixing slipped into the driver’s seat and drove away, leaving the four of them behind.

Renjun and his friends broke off into laughter as they watched Minghao and Junhui get further and further away.

Yixing looked on disapprovingly, but none of them spared him a glance as they drove back to the Huang’s house.

“God!” Dejun choked out, laughter tripping his words up one over the other. “The look on his face – I swear he wanted to murder you, Renjunnie.”

“Most people look at me like that,” Renjun said, his grin almost painful with how wide it was.

They all broke off into laughter again, clutching their stomachs.

“I think,” Yixing said, not taking his eyes off the road, “that your mother requested security personnel as protection against thieves and such, not schoolboys.”

“Their brochure said they cater to all protection needs,” Renjun shot back, still laughing.

Yixing sighed exasperatedly.

They stumbled through the entrance of the Huang Estate still recounting their encounter from earlier. But Renjun’s laughter died in his mouth at the sight of Sicheng sitting in the entrance hall, arms crossed over his chest and disappointment clear on his face.

Renjun stopped in his tracks, and Kunhang and Dejun both bumped into him when they didn’t catch the memo.

“Renjun,” Sicheng said, voice level but eyes alive with fire, “mind if I have a word?”

“I’ll um…” Kunhang cleared his throat. “I’ll go help my mum… dust the ornaments.” And he began to speed walk in the direction of the kitchens.

“I’ll help – with the dusting,” Dejun said, as though he had ever dusted anything in his life, and followed after him, near sprinting.

Sicheng watched them go with amusement before he looked back at Renjun and it withered. He jerked his head in the direction of the living room and started off towards it without another glance back at Renjun.

Renjun trailed after him, dragging his feet.

Sicheng was lurking behind the door when Renjun finally reached the living room, and slammed the door shut the moment Renjun stepped his foot inside.

“Care to explain why I have just received three phone calls about your behaviour in the last day?” Sicheng said, going to sit on one of the plumes in front of the fireplace. He held up three fingers. “One from the police after hearing reports of underage drinking.” He folded one finger. “One from your school saying that you threatened another teacher.” Another finger down. “And one from Mrs Xu saying that two thugs under your employ intimidated her son and his friend.”

He folded his final finger and Renjun opened his mouth to defend himself, but cut himself off at the icy look in Sicheng’s eyes.

“And then I check your financial records to see exactly how much you’ve spent on illegal drinking to find that you’ve bought thousands of yuan worth of designer clothes, video games, and another ceremonial tea set to add to your collection.”

“Brother—”

“And  _ then _ I get a call from Father.” Renjun’s stomach sunk. “Congratulations, little brother, you finally got his attention. Now what are you going to do with it? Because he’s pissed.”

“What did he say?” Renjun’s voice came out quiet.

“That he’d also received these calls and wanted me to confirm whether or not they were true. And what could I say? I’ve been covering for you for months, Renjun, and I have to draw the line at some point. I cannot keep lying to our father for your sake. So I told him I’d ask you – even though I  _ know _ that it’s true – because I thought you should at least have some warning.”

“Thank you,” Renjun said, his voice so weak now it was barely audible. He averted his gaze to the floor when Sicheng’s face softened slightly; that hurt more.

“Listen, Renjunnie, I get you’re going through a hard time right now because we all are, but this is not the way to deal with it.”

“I know. Did he say what he was going to do after you’d found out if I’d done it?”

“He said that for the shame you’ve brought to the family name that I should ground you, take away your phone and your card, and make you write apology letters to those you’ve wronged.”

And the shame within Renjun quickly became anger.

“He’s not even going to bother to talk to me himself? He won’t even bother to punish me himself? He’d get you to do it for him?” Renjun’s voice was breathy was disbelief.

“Renjun, he’s very busy—”

“Not busy enough to attend galas and fight with Mother, though! Not busy enough for sleazy dinners and new sports cars! Brother, I’m sorry for disappointing you, I truly am. But I could not give less of a shit about the family name or his honour.” Then he added, bitterly, just under his breath, “not when he couldn’t give less of a shit about us, either.”

“Then don’t do it for him, Renjun,” Sicheng said, as annoyingly rational as ever. “Do it for yourself. Be a better person for your own sake. And mine.”

“Do what exactly?” Renjun’s voice was starting to rise in volume.

“Stop being an angsty brat,” Sicheng grit out. He breathed out a touch more forcefully than necessary. “Just. Stop treating life like it’s your playground. It gets old.”

“I’ll do what I like,” Renjun said. “I’m sorry if it’s ‘getting old’, Sicheng, but you can keep being a good dog and listening to him if you like, but I’m not going to roll over and let them dictate my actions as though they care about me. And if Mum or Dad have a problem with it, then they can tell me that themselves.”

And then he turned and stormed out of the room. He near ran up to his room, and shut the door behind him with a noise that he hoped his father could hear all the way in his office in central Shanghai. And perhaps it was childish, but he felt like being a child, not an automaton who just went to school and followed his father’s orders to the letter.

Sometimes he just wanted to be a child for a bit, not a businessman in the making, or whatever it was everyone else seemed to want him to be.

It was with surprise that he wiped away the wetness from his eyes; he hadn’t even noticed he’d begun to cry.

Dejun and Kunhang were waiting for him, sat on top of his bed and decidedly not dusting ornaments. They were both looking at him with worry distinct in their eyes, and Renjun willed the dense feeling in his chest down where it threatened to spill into his heart.

“What’re you guys doing tomorrow?” He said instead, not giving them a chance to ask after his wellbeing.

They exchanged a look. “Nothing,” Dejun said hesitantly.

“Good,” Renjun said, “we’re throwing a party.”

“What?” Kunhang spluttered. “I thought Sicheng was just yelling at you for misbehaving.”

“He was,” Renjun said simply.

“Then why do you want to provoke both him and your parents further?”

Renjun shrugged. “Just felt like it.”

Dejun and Kunhang did that thing where they looked at each other like they both had something they wanted to say but neither of them wanted to be the one to say it. Renjun didn’t give them the chance for either of them.

“Come on, start inviting people already.”

“No offence, Renjunnie,” Kunhang said, “but no one at our school or any of the surrounding schools likes you.”

“No, but they like my money. They’ll come if I invite them, if only to say they’ve been.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll put it on my Insta and Twitter and you better do the same. I want this place trashed by this time tomorrow.”

“Renjun,” Dejun said, “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“It’s the best idea. Let’s fucking party.”

Considering that Renjun’s only prerequisite for this party was that it would trash the house, he thought he’d done pretty well. At least six of his father’s weird intricate lamps that were in almost every room had been broken; there was something that definitely was not water in the pool; and there were teenagers on the verge of alcohol poisoning in every vestibule.

Renjun gazed upon the hoard of his mindless peers with a weird sort of satisfaction. He’d gotten the maids to hide and lock away the most expensive and priceless items on show in the house, of course, and his and Sicheng’s bedrooms were securely locked. His parents’ room, however, he’d decided was open territory. It wasn’t as though either of them used it anyhow.

He watched a girl whom he’d overheard calling him a spoiled twat a few weeks ago barrel into one of the bathrooms on the third floor, not quite making it to the toilet bowl in time. He smirked.

His phone buzzed repeatedly in his pocket, as it had been doing all night. He took it out, looked at his assistant’s name spelled out on the screen and declined the call, where it joined the thirty three others from her and the countless number of texts and calls from each member of his family.

He put the phone back into his pocket but didn’t turn it to silent. There was a vicious satisfaction to be found in being able to feel how they kept trying to reach him.

A loud  _ crash _ rang out from somewhere in the house and Renjun smiled. He dared anyone to try and ignore this.

  
  


It was well into the night when it all came crashing down. The front door opened to reveal Renjun’s father, mother, and brother. Sicheng and their father were dressed in crisp, matching suits – another one of which hung at the back of Renjun’s wardrobe, tailored to his measurements. His mother wore a floor-length dress in similar colours, and clutched at a handbag.

Both of his parents were wearing their wedding rings and Renjun almost scoffed.

They stood frozen in the doorway for a few moments and Renjun watched with mixed feelings of dread and joy as they took in the party, the pandemonium that was their house.

Renjun took his phone from his pocket and cut the music. The party was over, and now the real fun would begin.

His father walked across the threshold of the entrance hall, the house now creepily silent as everyone tracked his movements with their eyes. They all knew who he was.

“Get out of my house,” he said, not particularly loudly, but his voice held a power that carried his words to the ears of everyone present and they all hurriedly began to exit the house. One-by-one, the partygoers filtered out of Renjun’s home, leaving behind the chaos they had left in their wake.

When there was no one left to leave, Renjun’s father’s eyes found his. And there was nothing there but anger and fury.  _ Good _ , Renjun thought.

“We will speak tomorrow, young man,” his father said, and his voice shook with anger. “After your mother and I have decided what to do with our insolent, selfish, dishonourable, disgraceful brat of a child.”

The idea of them discussing anything was laughable, but Renjun held his tongue. His father could truly be scary at times, and though it had seemed like a good idea to rile him up, looking at him now and realising just how furious he was, Renjun couldn’t help the shiver that ran through his blood.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Sicheng, and he could see how disappointed he was. His mother was aghast, more concerned with frantically letting her eyes roam over the state of the house than staring Renjun down as the others were.

“Out,” his father barked and Renjun obeyed, turning on his heel and stalking up to his room.

  
  


The next day his assistant, looking wholly frazzled and annoyed with him, fetched Renjun from his bedroom. She silently led him through the house, and he could hardly even tell there had been a party the previous night with how clean it was now. He followed her downstairs and down the corridor he knew led to his father’s office. He took a deep breath to steady himself before he knocked.

His parents were both sat on the opposite side of his father’s large, mahogany desk ‒ about two metres apart. Still, it was the closest he’d seen the two of them in private in a while without lawyers and a security team between them in months. Something dense, foreboding, grew in his stomach.

“Sit down, Renjun,” his mother said, her voice icy.

He did, taking the single seat on his side of the desk. The door swung shut behind him.

“We’re disappointed in you,” his father said.

“Cutting straight to the chase, I see,” Renjun said before he could stop himself.

His father’s scowl deepened. “This is what we mean. You are rude, spoiled, with no respect for your elders. And we are tired of you abusing the family name in this way. You have destroyed my house‒”

“ _ Your _ house? You barely live here!”

“You will be quiet when I am talking to you.”

Renjun opened his mouth but a look from his father silenced him before he could even say anything.

“It is clear to us,” his mother continued, “that all of our efforts‒”

Renjun very badly suppressed his snort and his mother shot him a reprimanding look.

“All of our efforts are wasted on you. You constantly ignore our instructions; you spend our money on frivolous things; you don’t show up to events, and you are ill-mannered with our staff ‒ especially your assistant whom you force to chase after you whenever you don’t do the things you are supposed to.”

“Look at the Na children,” his father picked up where his mother had left off. “They are polite and intelligent and sophisticated. I actually find myself glad you skipped the announcement yesterday, because the embarrassment of your truancy is better than the embarrassment of your presence. The embarrassment of seeing you next to good children and seeing first-hand the disparity in your behaviour to theirs.”

Renjun sat there, each word hitting him like a bullet.

“You are irresponsible and unworthy of carrying the family name. And unless you change your ways soon, you won’t,” his mother said.

Renjun’s blood ran cold. “You’d disown me?” 

The look his father levelled him with was nothing less than terrifying. “I have more than one son.”

And what Renjun felt then was some strange mixture of fear and anger and hatred and all of it swirled together in the pit of his stomach, brewing into some numb feeling of pain and anguish until all he could do was stare at his parents. At his parents who would happily rid themselves of that burden.

“We have decided,” his mother said, “that the only way we can guarantee your improvement, is if we remove you from an environment in which you are comfortable to defy us.”

“There are factors here, at home, which we think are detrimental to your growth. Here, you say your name and it gets you anything you want and we think it has bred you into the person you are. Here, your,” his father wrinkled his nose, “ _ friends _ will follow you around and entertain whatever idea you come up with.”

Renjun very almost burst at that. He only just about managed to keep his voice level when he said, “so what do you intend to do with me?”

His father threw a sheet of paper in his direction so that it landed on the desk in front of him. Looking at it, puzzled, Renjun realised that it was a brochure. In large, calligraphic font across the top it read  _ Chaucer Private Boarding School for Boys _ in English. Below it was a picture of an old building among some fields.

“What’s this?”

“Your new school.”

“What.”

He looked up to find that his parents seemed rather apathetic, even as his heart thundered in his chest at the thought of being uprooted from his home.

“You can’t be serious.”

At this, his father smiled. A cold, unfriendly thing.

“Oh, but we are.”

“You will leave for England in a week,” his mother said, “just in time for the new academic year. We have arranged with the headmaster there ‒ an old friend of ours ‒ for you to take A-Level examinations in the subjects of mathematics, further mathematics, physics, and English literature and we expect you to do well in them. You will complete your last two years of schooling there. It is one of the finest schools in the country.”

Renjun stayed silent, having difficulty processing his mother’s words.

“And we will be cutting you off.”

And Renjun felt those words hit him like a blunt force. Felt them knock him into shock. Felt the severity of them stun him to silence.

“We will pay your school fees, of course, but there will be no more opportunity for you to waste money on the frivolous things you currently do. We will be taking your phone and any other items we deem unnecessary.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Yes, we can,” his father bit back.

“You will enroll under an alias to prevent you using connections and you  _ will _ behave in accordance with the school’s rules. We can only hope that they will be able to achieve what we have not when it comes to you.”

“What if I need to buy something?”

“Get a job,” his father said offhandedly.

“You can’t make me,” he hissed petulantly, and crossed his arms tight over his chest.

The glint in his father’s eye told Renjun he had been waiting for him to say that. “Well, if we can’t remove you from the bad influences, I suppose we’ll have to remove the bad influences from you.” The knot in Renjun’s stomach tightened; he knew where he was going with this. “And, I suppose I would have to start with our maid Mrs Wong’s son whom we pay to attend the same school as you, out of the goodness of our hearts. And I suppose we would have to fire Mrs Wong entirely, so that her son would not continue to distract you.”

Renjun snapped. He stood up. “Don’t you dare try and bring Kunhang into this when he’s done nothing wrong.” He turned his gaze at his parents and channeled every bit of anger he had felt towards them for the past three years into it. “ _ You _ are meant to be the ones to raise me. Not get some foreign school to do your job for you. Don’t call me a bad son when you’ve never cared about being good parents.”

“Don’t raise your voice at me, young man,” his father said, his own voice climbing in volume and the vein on his forehead pulsating. “This is what we mean! Your actions are yours and yours alone and they bring shame onto this family. I am ashamed to call you my son. You flaunt around our wealth as though you have done a thing to deserve it, you ungrateful child. And I will not have it anymore.

“You will go to this school and you will be taught how to behave if you would like to remain a part of this family. I will not tolerate any further protests.”

Renjun felt himself deflate, staring his father down and feeling his mother’s eyes bore into his skull. He couldn’t lie and pretend it didn’t hurt. He couldn’t convince himself the stinging pain he felt was just anger.

He slumped back down into his chair and when he spoke it came out smaller than he would have liked. “When can I come back?”

“When you have learnt to behave properly and finished your education,” his mother said.

He looked up at his parents once more, resigned to his fate, and almost startled at how similar their expressions were. Inwardly, he scoffed. It was the most united he had seen his parents in years. And it was against him.

As though he could sense that Renjun had given in, his father said, “you leave in a week, Renjun. Time to brush up on your English.”

  
  


He walked back to his room with the brochure crinkling where it was clutched too tightly in his hand. His steps were heavy but he willed himself to hold back the inevitable until he reached the safety of his room.

Kunhang was waiting in the corridor leading to his room, pacing up and down. When he saw Renjun he met his eyes with concern, but Renjun shook his head ‒ no more than a small turn in either direction ‒ but Kunhang understood immediately, and left, disappearing down the servants’ staircase.

Renjun continued into his room and the moment the door closed behind him, he broke.

He balled the brochure up and threw it as far as he could, choking on his breath as he struggled to take in air past his sobs. Tears gathered and burned in his eyes ‒ as much the product of anger as they were sadness. His home. They were taking his home from him. He let out a strangled shout. He balled his hands into fists and lunged out on the air needing someway ‒ any way ‒ to expel the fierceness of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.

His body wracked with the force of his cries, and he sank to the floor as the anger became more and more drowned out by the fear of rejection and abandonment.

He pulled his knees up close to his chest and curled himself up as small as he could, hoping that if he made himself small enough it would all go away. And he tried to forget the brochure lying on the floor, tried to muffle the sounds of his parents’ voices that still rang in his ears as they told him they were disappointed and he was an embarrassment and they were ashamed of him.

A pathetic sob escaped him as he remembered the conversation piece by piece.

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that. He didn’t know how much of his precious one week he wasted crying like a child on his bedroom floor. He didn’t want to know.

  
  


“How many pairs of Gucci sneakers would your parents deem ‘unnecessary’?” Kunhang said, holding up another pair of shoes in his hands.

“I think Renjun has enough shoes,” Dejun said, looking over the open suitcase. “In fact, I think he has too many. How many ballroom dances do you think you’ll be attending? Because that is a lot of dress shoes.”

“They’re for school, dipshit,” Renjun said. “It’s a private school so I have to wear nice shoes.” He looked over to where Kunhang was going through his drawers. “As much as I hate it, I do think my parents would classify my Cartier collection as unnecessary.”

“What about one of your tea sets ‒ those are essential,” Kunhang said.

Renjun shook his head. Kunhang sighed as though it pained him to put the box down.

“It doesn’t look too bad, Jun,” Dejun said, turning his laptop around so Renjun could see the screen.

On the screen was Chaucer School’s website. It showed a picture of the school and then some text that was too small for Renjun to read from this far away.

“It’s one of the oldest private schools in Britain,” Dejun read out. “Apparently the main building was built in 1563 but since then they’ve extended it into an entire campus with state-of-the-art technology and accommodation. I mean,” he looked up from the screen, “it could be worse.”

“It could be,” Renjun admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

“Yeah,” Dejun said. “Still sucks.”

The two of them had been trying their hardest to be positive for Renjun’s sake, but he could tell it was wearing down on them. It was hard to find much to be positive about.

“Okay, I’ve had enough of packing for today,” he said, slamming Dejun’s laptop shut. “Let’s go get some cake.”

“But your parents‒”

“They’re not here; they won’t know. Come on, let’s go.”

  
  


“I told you to stop acting like this,” Sicheng said, but there was no real bite to it.

“I know, brother,” Renjun said.

Sicheng sighed, and pulled Renjun into a tight hug. “You’re a real fucking idiot, you know that?”

Sicheng’s embrace was almost crushing, but Renjun savoured it, and blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. The roar of the airport was loud around them, the future it promised daunting, but Sicheng’s hold felt safe, serene. Sicheng held him for a long time, and when they finally pulled away, Renjun’s eyes weren’t the only ones that were shiny.

“I got this for you,” Sicheng said, reaching into his bag to pull out a small box. “It’s a phone. It’s a pretty shit one but I figured that it was better than nothing. You’ll have to figure out a way to pay for the monthly costs because I couldn’t do it without Mum and Dad finding out, but I thought it would be nice.”

Renjun pulled Sicheng in for another hug. “You’re the best big brother ever. I’m really going to miss you.” He was glad Sicheng ignored the way his voice broke. He pulled away.

“I got Kunhang and Dejun to put theirs and my numbers in, and I think Dejun downloaded Spotify and logged into his account for you so you’d have premium. It’s not much but I couldn’t just send you off to a foreign country without‒”

“It’s everything,” Renjun said. “Thank you.”

Sicheng ruffled his hair. “Don’t get into any shit. Okay, little brother? Stay below the radar and do try to become a better person. I’ll talk to Mum and Dad but there’s no promises I can get them to come around.”

“Thanks for trying, anyway,” Renjun said. “Even if we all know they’re ecstatic at getting rid of me for two years.”

Sicheng smiled tersely. “You can make it through. I believe in you. Just don’t get into any shit and you’ll be fine.”

“You already said that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s important.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and Renjun didn’t know what else he could say that would capture the gaping hole forming in his heart. He didn’t want to say goodbye ‒ not just yet.

“Text me when you touch down?”

“Of course,” Renjun said. Then his voice became infinitely smaller. “I’m gonna miss you.”

Sicheng’s smile softened. “I’ll miss you, too, little brother. See you at Christmas.”

They waited a few more moments before Sicheng sighed loudly. “Okay, we’re finished. You two can have him now.”

And instantaneously, Kunhang and Dejun bounded towards Renjun, pounced on him, and tackled him into a hug. Renjun couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, but he could tell that it was loud and right in his ear. He heard some semblance of  _ I’m so fucking sad _ and  _ what even is China without Huang Renjun _ and  _ don’t make me cry in this airport I swear _ , but it was more just white noise of emotional weeping.

He finally managed to negotiate himself out of their grips and hold them an arm’s length away so he could actually see their faces.

“I’m gonna miss you guys, too,” he laughed, though it sounded a little wet.

“Renjun, you’re gonna make this preppy English school your bitch,” Kunhang said, voice thick with tears, and it startled a laugh out of Renjun.

“He said it a little crudely, but I agree,” Dejun said, “you are going to make this school your bitch.”

“Fuck, England’s gonna suck without you two.”

“And China will suck without you.”

A beat passed before they were all hugging again.

“Renjun, flight,” came Sicheng’s voice.

Renjun pulled himself away and tried to ignore the wave of loneliness that washed over him as he did so.

“I’ll see you guys soon, yeah?”

“Of course.”

He didn’t say goodbye, because it wasn’t goodbye. It was a  _ see you later _ . And that was a promise Renjun would hold onto until it came true.

He lugged his giant suitcase to check-in to put it in the hold and got through security without much hassle. He took a seat in the waiting area. His boarding pass was wedged into his passport and he took it out to have a look at it. The words  _ Economy Class _ stared back at him.

His parents had booked the flight for him, and they hadn’t even bothered to help him get to his place of exile in comfort. That familiar anger rose in his gut but he pushed it down, and grabbed the Moomin plushie key-ring attached to his carry-on, playing with it in an effort to calm himself down.

After a few moments, he took his new phone from its box and stared ‒ perhaps a little disgusted ‒ at how old the model was. Sicheng hadn’t been joking when he’d said it was shitty. Though, he reasoned, if he was going to have to pay off the monthly contract, maybe it would be worth having a cheaper one.

It took a minute or so for the device to turn on and, when it finally did, the display board listed his flight as  _ Boarding _ and he had to lock it. He slipped it back into his pocket with a huff and stood up, making his way to Terminal 3.

The flight was uncomfortable. He was, thankfully, seated by the window but, unthankfully, there was a child behind him who seemed to delight in the prospect of kicking his chair, and the person next to him coughed loudly and disgustingly the entire time.

Well, he thought, his parents’ plan of punishing him was certainly going well.

He spent the majority of the flight asleep, but when he was awake, he spent his time disgruntled and longing for the space and luxury of business class.

It was a long flight.

It was raining in London.

The landing was delayed because of the weather, and Renjun could feel himself growing more and more annoyed. When they finally touched down, it was bumpy and uncomfortable. Rain beat harshly against the window, and Renjun pushed his earphones further into his ears, turning up the volume in an effort to block it out.

They had to walk from the plane into the airport, and then the wait for his luggage was long. He waited around with the other passengers from his flight, not tired because he’d slept on the flight, but exhausted from the sheer mental exertion of the day so far. While he did so, he pulled out his phone and shot a text to his brother using the airport’s Wi-Fi to say he’d landed safely.

He spotted his suitcase and hefted it off the conveyor belt, struggling a little with the weight. He wheeled it out, following the exit signs until he found himself in the main section of the airport.

He pulled over to the side and rifled through his bag to find the brochure for the school ‒ still crinkled and damaged ‒ and found the address in the bottom right-hand corner of the back cover. It was some weird British town on the outskirts of Canterbury ‒ wherever that was.

He got his phone out, and tried to look up directions, but the thing was bad and kept disconnecting. He let out a loud noise of frustration and put it back in his pocket with perhaps a bit more force than necessary and ignored the questioning looks he got from those around him.

He began to lug his suitcase around the airport, looking for a convenient sign or information point or  _ something _ and trying to ignore that sinking feeling of anxiety creeping up his spine.

There were large crowds in the airport. He wandered through them, getting pushed around and more and more irritated every time someone refused to move out of his way. Back home, it was easy. Here, he was just another face amongst the crowd, being shoved by people looking for their gate or late for their flight.

He grunted when a man who must have been over six foot ran into him and almost knocked him down. The man threw out what was either an apology or a curse in a language Renjun didn’t recognise, and kept running.

With a sigh, Renjun continued walking. If navigating an airport were this difficult, he didn’t want to think about how horrible navigating an entire foreign country would be.

It was a long while later that Renjun had almost given up, and was about to resign himself to living at the airport until Christmas when he finally spotted it. A kiosk booth with  _ information _ written on it in a number of languages ‒ Mandarin included.

He made his way over to it, and waited in a line behind three other tourists. He let out a deep breath of relief, and felt his heart calm down now that he wasn’t lost.

“Hello,” he said when it was his turn, and winced at how horribly accented his English was. He hadn’t spoken it in a while. “Could you please tell me how to get here?” He lifted the brochure onto the surface between them and pointed at the address.

The woman in the booth was middle-aged and chewing loudly on a piece of gum, turning lazily to where there was a computer inside the kiosk next to her.

“Take the train from Terminal 5 to Paddington and then get the Circle line…” she continued speaking, but her words were hurried and she had an accent Renjun had never heard before. He strained his ears, tried his best to understand what she was saying but he could barely tell where one word ended and the next started, let alone decipher what any of it meant.

She’d stopped speaking now, and was looking at him expectantly.

“Sorry,” he said, and was happy that his accent was getting clearer with every word, “but please may you write that down for me?”

She sighed, and unsubtly rolled her eyes, but picked up a piece of paper and a pen anyway, scribbling something down. She handed him the paper and he scanned his eyes over it. It made enough sense, just about.

“Thank you,” he said, and walked off.

One difficult ticket buying experience, three trains, and over two hours later, Renjun, with much difficulty, pulled his suitcase off the train at Canterbury West Station. It landed on the platform with a thud, and he looked around, taking the bright sunlight in and blinking the sleep from his eyes where he’d dozed off on the train.

He referred to his instruction paper again, and set off towards what looked like the bus stop, his arms aching as he dragged his bag behind him.

He had to take one bus into the town. The ride took about forty minutes, and the bus was deserted, as to be expected on a Wednesday morning on a journey to the middle of nowhere, he thought.

The ride wasn’t awful, though. He was wide awake by this point, and spent the time gazing at the scenery. Canterbury was an old place, the streets stone and the buildings looking as though they’d been ripped from a medieval period piece. It was beautiful, and Renjun traced the architecture of each building for as long as he was able to before the bus was moving again.

The bus took him out of the city and through hills and planes of the countryside, green and luscious and so different from anywhere at home. Home. The thought of it made his chest ache with longing.

He shook it from his head and focused back on the fields of sheep.

He got off the bus in the town centre and sat down on a bench to wait for the next one he needed to get.

The town was quaint, so vastly different from busy, polluted, bustling centre of Shanghai that it was unsettling. There weren’t many people around ‒ perhaps the odd elderly couple, or person walking their dog ‒ but otherwise it was empty. There was a row of shops down one of the roads to Renjun’s left, and he could make out what looked like a park at the end of another.

He checked his phone, and saw that it was around eight thirty in the morning English time, which meant the school had started its day half an hour ago. He wouldn’t make it for first period, and the thought of it was relieving.

He saw his bus approach and fished out the English coins from his pocket, counting out exactly £2.20 like the woman had written for him to do. One more bus and he would have arrived at his new home.

He boarded the bus and instructed the sickly feeling in his stomach to shut the fuck up.

  
  


The closest bus stop to the school was, in fact, very far away from the school.

It was a twenty minute walk, up a hill, all the while terrified for what was going to happen to him and dragging a hefty suitcase behind him in cold English weather. At least it wasn’t raining anymore ‒ Renjun would take whatever little positives he could get.

The school could be seen from a mile off.

It was an old brick building, looking identical to how it looked on the front of the brochure in Renjun’s rucksack, with ivy climbing the walls and a tall gate enclosing the entire campus. The main building was big in itself, but there were more ‒ Renjun knew ‒ spread out behind it, where he couldn’t see.

There was a navy sign with white lettering stood just beyond the gate.  _ Chaucer Private Boarding School for Boys  _ it read, and below it was the headmaster’s name and the year it was founded. Renjun took a deep breath and straightened out his clothes.

He walked up to the gate and pressed the buzzer.

“Yes, hello?”

“I’m a new student starting here today.”

“Of course, just come up to main reception and Headmaster Moon will show you around.”

The gates opened impossibly slowly and Renjun stared at them impassively. It was hard to be impressed by grandeur when you lived in a private, gated estate.

The path leading up to the large black door in the centre of the building was made of many small stones, and was wide enough for a car. On either side of it was a carefully maintained lawn, the grass neatly trimmed and so vividly green it looked almost fake.

He trailed up it, and knocked three times on the door before pushing it open.

The interior was about as regal as he’d expected it to be. The ceiling was high, and to his left there was a large cabinet with an abundance of trophies arranged neatly on its shelves. Directly in front of him, there was a desk, where two men sat in front of large computer monitors.

One of them was talking on the phone, too fast for Renjun to bother translating, and the other was typing furiously at their keyboard, eyes fixed to the screen.

He lingered in the doorway awkwardly for a moment.

There was a wooden staircase off to the right that stretched up in a blocky spiral, and had a rug lining the middle of it. The flooring was made of wooden floorboards, but they didn’t look old and worn, rather they were polished and looked as though they wouldn’t make a creak no matter how much weight was put on them.

The man on the phone put it back into its receiver and looked up, eyes falling onto Renjun.

“Right,” he said, his voice low, “you must be our new student, Injun Wei.”

Renjun blinked. He opened his mouth to correct him but before he could say anything, he was cut off.

“Ah yes, Mr Wei, glad to see you found your way alright.”

Renjun looked to see a man only a little taller than himself, dressed in a sleek grey suit and what looked like Saint Laurent shoes descending the staircase. His face seemed kind, but there was something to his eyes that screamed no-nonsense.

“I am Headmaster Moon,” he said, reaching out his hand. “I’m a friend of your father’s.”

_ Oh. _

Renjun took his hand and shook it. Headmaster Moon had a firm grip.

_ Injun Wei _ . Renjun weighed the name up in his head. He didn’t like it.

“It’s good to meet you, Sir,” he said.

“Follow me, then, Injun. Just leave your case here.” He turned to one of the receptionists. “Get someone to take them to room 213 in Juniper while I show Injun here around.”

Headmaster Moon set off at a brisk pace through the door to the side of the desk and Renjun hurried to follow. 

Portraits of who Renjun guessed were old headmasters lined the walls, as well as a row of plinths with busts and vases on either side of the corridor.

“Your father has told me a lot about you, Renjun,” Headmaster Moon said when the door behind them had closed. His voice was sterner now and he didn’t stop walking as he spoke. “This is a respectable establishment where we expect our pupils to behave. Your behaviour, as I have heard it, goes against the principles of this school and I will not tolerate it here. You are here as a favour to your father but that can be rescinded easily if you do not comply with our rules. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” Renjun said, even though everything Headmaster Moon had said was dreadfully boring.

Headmaster Moon stopped walking very suddenly to study Renjun’s face carefully, as though looking for a sign of a lie. Renjun made sure to hide them.

“Good,” Headmaster Moon said, and he started walking again. “You are here in very peculiar circumstances, Renjun. This is a high-class school, for those able to afford it and, by nature of your father’s request, we have listed you on the system as a scholarship student so as not to reveal your true identity.”

“A scholarship kid?” Renjun asked incredulously. “You can’t be serious. Everyone hates them. They’re poor.”

“ _ They _ ,” Headmaster Moon said, “are you. It’s better than being sent to a state school, trust you me.”

The corridor led to a large open room with rectangular benches scattered around the space and large windows on either side standing just under the height of the room. It looked modern but still wholly traditional, and Renjun was impressed despite himself. There were wooden columns stretching to the wooden beams across the ceiling, beyond which the roof extended to be long and triangular.

Above the windows, there were framed photos of students, all dressed in the same uniform with their names and a series of grades printed beneath their faces.

“Our hall of fame,” Headmaster Moon said, following his line of sight. “The very best of our students are put up there when they graduate ‒ usually with offers from the best universities in the country.”

At the opposite end of the hall to where Renjun stood, over the fireplace, there was one more photo. It was a little bigger than the rest and it displayed a boy with striking eyes and high cheekbones, smiling brightly. Renjun recognised him, and had his suspicions confirmed when he read the writing just below.

_ Taeyong Na, Head Boy 2017-2018 _

“I suppose you already know Taeyong, after your families announced their wager just a week ago. He is our school’s pride, and you would do well to try to follow in his footsteps. His brother is in your year. Though your father tells me you did not deign to attend that announcement so I doubt that your identity is in jeopardy of being revealed.”

They walked until they were stood in the centre of the room.

“This is the main common area for the sixth form. You are free to use this space during your free periods and break and lunch. Do not abuse this privilege by littering or destructive behaviour. There is food sold both here,” he pointed to the corner of the hall, where there was a counter with sealed shelves, “and in the dining hall in Ash. Your parents have informed me that they have put £20 onto your account for lunches, but when that is gone they expect you to pay for yourself. Breakfast and dinner are provided and are served in the dining hall. 

“All of our buildings are named after trees. This is Willow, the main building. Here are our teacher’s offices, computer suites, and library as well as several of our other facilities. You’ll receive a map, but be warned that our campus is extensive thanks to our generous benefactors, such as your parents, so ensure you leave appropriate time to navigate your way to your classes as poor punctuality will not be tolerated. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your room; it’s in Juniper.”

Juniper was apparently quite some way from Willow, across neatly trimmed lawns and paths of stone. Headmaster Moon kept prattling on about something but Renjun could not find it in him to care enough to listen. He was bitter. Incredibly so.

Maybe his school back home didn’t have two dozen separate buildings or grassy areas or period-blended architecture. But his school back home didn’t make him feel small. His school back home had his friends, and he could walk around as if he owned it, because he practically did.

Here, Renjun felt out of place. And the thought of that made his hands clammy, his blood too hot where it ran under his skin.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like anything about any of this.

  
  


Juniper looked newer than Willow, but not by much. It was made of dark red brick and had a slanted roof. He followed Headmaster Moon up the staircase to the second floor, and to the room marked 213.

Headmaster Moon took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

“Welcome to your new home, Injun,” he said, pushing the door open.

Renjun resisted the urge to scowl at that name and stepped inside.

It was a modest room ‒ maybe a third of the size of his one at home ‒ with two twin beds pressed against opposite walls. One was made, linen duvets of white tucked neatly under the mattress. The other was not. The duvet was bunched up around the end of the bed, and the pillows were in disarray, one laying abandoned on the floor.

He turned to Headmaster Moon to find him frowning.

“It seems I’ll have to take five points from Summoners for Mr Liu’s messiness.” Renjun didn’t bother asking what that meant; he didn’t care. “I trust you will not be the same.”

“No, sir,” Renjun said, already disliking his roommate.

“Alright then, Mr Wei.” Renjun very nearly blanched. “I will leave you to settle in, then. Break starts at twenty five to eleven and finishes at five to. You will find your timetable on your desk, along with some other documents I recommend you read, and your fob. I believe you have an English lesson third, and I expect you to attend. Do try to be on time.”

Headmaster Moon handed Renjun his key. He walked to the door and almost left but then he turned around, and shot Renjun a look so piercing Renjun almost recoiled. He held his own, though, and met Headmaster Moon’s gaze with one of his own. He wouldn’t back down from a challenge. And that’s all this ‘punishment’ was: a challenge.

“Do not disappoint me, Mr Huang. I have belief that you  _ can  _ change for the better.” And though Renjun was sure his smile was intended to be reassuring, he found it nothing but disconcerting. “Goodbye, Mr Wei.”

The door shut behind him, and Renjun let out a breath of air.

Finally alone, he took some time to take in his room. He refused to call it his new home. It wasn’t. Shanghai was his home. The Huang estate ‒ a place of luxury and prestige ‒ was his home. Not this old-ass school in some remote part of Canterbury.

There were two desks, both next to each other, between the beds and pressed against the back wall, where there was a window with a large, low windowsill. At the foot of each bed was a wardrobe and dresser and above them was a shelf.

There was an obvious split down the middle of the room.

His roommate’s side was messy, books and clothes and other miscellaneous items littered around on the floor. His desk was inundated with loose sheets of paper and pens missing their lids. He had a laptop sitting on top of his pillow, and Renjun could spy sweet wrappers sticking out from beneath the pillow. He rolled his eyes.

He walked over to his desk and sat down in the chair. It was cushioned, not overly horrible. There was a pack on his desk and he leafed through the paper it contained. The school’s code of conduct, the dress code, and other general information he didn’t have the energy to read. He briefly scanned over them anyway, if only so he could say that he had.  _ No bizarre or attention seeking hairstyles, _ read the dress code, and Renjun snorted. The map was near impossible to decipher, all outlines of blocks and weird names of trees.

He scoffed. Who named buildings in a school after fucking trees?

There was a black box on his bed, and he lifted the lid to reveal a school uniform. He glared at it and then put the lid back on. He checked his phone.  _ 09:28. _ Plenty of time, he thought.

The school’s Wi-Fi was ‒ thankfully ‒ unsecured. He supposed there was no point when everyone here was rich enough to buy their own private hotspots if need-be. His phone connected and started buzzing immediately with messages from his friends and his brother.

He smiled, properly for the first time since he’d arrived in England.

He sat down on his bed and pulled up Line, finding Dejun’s contact and calling him.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Renjunnie!” came Kunhang’s voice the moment the call connected. “How’s England? Do you miss us? How are you?”

Slipping back into Chinese was so easy, and his head no longer ached with the pain of having to translate.

“England’s pretty shit,” he said. “And of course I miss you. How’s home?”

“My parents called,” Dejun said, and Renjun frowned. “Apparently your parents called them and I’m on ‘thin ice’ as though that means anything.”

Renjun sighed. “I’m sorry for the party‒”

“Don’t try it, Huang,” Dejun said, and Renjun felt relief flood through him when he could hear Dejun’s smirk.

“Also, everyone at school today was wondering where you were but they were too scared to ask us,” Kunhang snickered.

Renjun laughed, thinking of his classmates back home. “I’m sure they all miss me so much,” he said sarcastically.

“Some of them think your dad killed you.”

“He might as well have,” Renjun said, looking again around at his room. “England is all hills and rain and my roommate seems like a slob. God, I hate it here and I haven’t even had my first lesson yet. English literature? That barely even counts as a subject.”

“I think your parents want you to become more cultured. But at least maths will be easy for you,” said Dejun. Renjun appreciated that they were trying so hard to find positives, because he really could not see any himself. “It’s not like you’ll have to work hard.”

“Yeah, but that’s enough about this place. Tell me what’s up with you guys.”

It was clear Renjun just wanted a distraction ‒ anything to stop him fixating on the reality of his situation ‒ and he could tell the pair of them knew. They obliged, though, and Renjun was so grateful they knew him as well as they did.

Kunhang began some story about something or rather and Renjun closed his eyes as he listened, lying down on his bed. Like that, it was easy to pretend he was back at home with his friends, not alone in some forgein country.

  
  


“Shit,” Renjun said, jolting into a sitting position. “I have to go I have class in like thirty minutes and I need to get changed and I have no clue where I’m going.”

They hurriedly said their goodbyes, and wished him luck, and then Renjun was lifting the lid off of the box on his bed and throwing it off to the side so that it landed on his bed.

He pulled the uniform out of its box and lay it out on his bed, pushing the box under the bed along with the lid. He zipped open his suitcase and rifled through it until he found a black pair of shoes and his satchel. He seized the documents on his desk and grabbed a pen from his roommate’s ‒ sure that whoever it was wouldn’t miss one ‒ and chucked them into his bag.

He looked around and thanked whatever higher powers that existed when he saw it ‒ an ensuite. His muscles relaxed slightly at the realisation that he would only have to share a bathroom with one person. That was okay. That was manageable; he could do that.

He dug his toothbrush and face wash out of his bag and hurtled into the bathroom with them, frantically getting ready. He was already going to be known as the poor kid. He didn’t need to be known as the poor, ugly kid with bad breath and shitty skin.

The bathroom was cramped, but it would do. A sink and mirror and upstanding shower pushed into the corner and not much else. And he started preparing ‒ both physically and mentally ‒ for his first lesson as Injun Wei: pauper amongst aristocracy. The thought disgusted him.

The uniform was a deep navy blue. It was formed of a blazer with thin golden hemming over a crisp white shirt. Renjun pulled somewhat futilely at his cuffs. The school’s insignia was stitched into the front pocket, and just beneath it, there was a blue bar sewn in. He tracked the uniform down to the straight grey trousers that gave way to shiny, pointed black shoes. He frowned, straightened his tie, looked back over his outfit.

It felt foreign. Like he was dressed in someone else’s skin.

His watch ticked obnoxiously on his wrist and he gave himself one final look in the mirror before turning away. He picked his bag up from where he’d thrown it on his bed, pocketed his phone and let the door slam loudly behind him on his way out, even if no one was around to hear it.

The grounds were crawling with students now. They were loud and unruly and walked in large groups to the point that Renjun could only walk past them if he shoved. Which he did, dutifully ignoring when they yelled after him for it.

The map was no help, but he kept it in his hands anyway.  _ English, O1D _ , it said. Which, according to the key in the bottom left-hand corner, meant Oak building, on the first floor, and classroom D. That wasn’t exactly helpful, though, not when the school grounds acted much like a maze, all winding routes and paths that led back to places he’d already been to.

He resolved to just walk in a straight line, and maybe God had finally taken pity on him, because, for the first time in a while, he was graced by a small chance of luck.

Off to the side of what looked like a sports field, with goalposts set up and a few dozen children playing football, was an old building with a plaque that read  _ Oak _ . Renjun sighed, exhaling all the tension he had been carrying for the past twenty minutes.

Walking down the hallway meant dodging the clumps of students talking excitedly littered about there. It was hard to pick out what they were saying, when the barrage of English had his mind muddled and he fought the urge to call Sicheng, just to hear a familiar voice in a familiar language.

A few of the boys eyed him weirdly but Renjun paid them no mind, too focused on locating classroom O1D, He spotted it a good way down the hall and turned into it, the noise somehow amplifying even more when he pushed the door open.

There were voices and laughter and students sitting on top of desks in circles. Some of them were eating or telling stories with exaggerated hand motions, and some were staring with intense concentration at games consoles, but all of them turned to look at him when he stepped inside.

And Renjun wasn’t a self-conscious person in the slightest, but having thirty or so pairs of eyes bore into him on his first day in a foreign country would be enough to unsettle anybody. That was the excuse he made as he averted his eyes to the floor and determinedly made his way to the only desk without anything on it to mark it as someone else’s. It was right at the back, which he was thankful for, and he slinked into it without making a noise.

He could still feel the eyes on him where they burned into his new uniform, and suddenly the tie around his throat felt too tight but he disregarded it as best he could and fished his phone out of his pocket, looking at it and pointedly ignoring the eyes fixed on him.

The silence that had swallowed the room was broken by a loud snort, which then broke again into a series of sniggers which multiplied and multiplied until the entire room was filled with laughter again. Renjun pushed down the embarrassment that rose at the knowledge that they were all laughing at him and continued to stare resolutely at his phone. He was embarrassed by the model, sure that they were looking down on it, but it was still better than staring off into middle-distance and pretending not to hear them.

“Leave him alone,” a deep, nasal voice said, but he was snickering, too. Renjun felt anger collect in the pit of his stomach. “He’s just shy.”

And conversations resumed and Renjun felt all the eyes leave him. Almost.

He chanced a look up, and regretted it immediately.

He locked eyes with a pair of deep brown eyes, mirth dancing behind them. They were striking and seemed to strip him straight to his core but Renjun didn’t let himself back down from the challenge. He held the boy’s stare for a few moments that seemed to stretch for longer before the boy laughed again, something like acknowledgement in his eyes, and looked away and began to talk with one of his friends.

Now that he wasn’t looking at him, Renjun took time to observe the boy.

What was annoying was that he was attractive. Unfairly so. He had light brown hair that couldn’t be natural, but suited his face in a way that made it seem like it was. It was fluffy, fell over his forehead bar a few choice strands that flicked up artfully. His skin was tan, and contrasted against the bright white of his shirt. His shirt which, Renjun thought testily, contrary to the school dress code, had two buttons undone to expose the barest hint of his collar bone.

His blazer was the same as Renjun’s, but with some evident adjustments. He had a red bar below his front pocket, rather than a blue one. And the left side of it was covered with sew-on badges of different colours, all spelling out different sports in white lettering.  _ LACROSSE. BADMINTON. EQUESTRIAN. ARCHERY.  _ The list went on.

There was also a shiny red badge in the shape of a shield, a yellow bar badge, and a silver badge shaped like the school’s crest pinned to his lapel. They caught in the light, glinted whenever he moved.

_ Teacher’s pet, know-it-all _ , Renjun thought.

He was sat on top of one of five wooden desks pushed together in a circle in the centre of the room, posture too perfect and long legs swinging off the side. He was sharing it with another boy whose face Renjun couldn’t see, but had an arm thrown around his shoulders as they laughed together. His laugh was loud ‒ and more like a cackle than anything else ‒ and it broke through every other noise inside the classroom, inexplicably so.

Renjun scowled.

The boy looked up and locked eyes with Renjun, lips pulling into a cocky smirk which Renjun returned with an eye roll before dropping his gaze back down to his phone.

He was scrolling with an abnormal level of determination through his Twitter feed when a shadow darkened his desk.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he muttered under his breath in Chinese.

He locked his phone and let it drop to his desk, pulling his head up to be met with the sight of that same guy, flanked by two others, standing over him with a smug grin stretched over his face to reveal a set of big white teeth.

“Can I help you?”

The boy in the middle laughed and shared a look with his friends and it was then that Renjun noticed that the entire classroom had fallen silent, that they were all watching this interaction.

“Jaemin Na,” the boy said, sticking his hand out. And Renjun recognised the name instantly but didn’t let what it implied intimidate him.

“Injun Wei,” Renjun said, forcing his alias out despite how strange it felt on his tongue.

“I haven’t heard of you before.” Jaemin cocked his head to the side, perched himself on the edge of Renjun’s desk and Renjun only just barely resisted the urge to push him off.

He faintly heard whispers of  _ new money _ , and  _ got lucky  _ flitting through the room and grit his teeth to stop himself biting out a retort.

“I thought I’d heard of everyone rich enough to come here,” Jaemin said, casually, like he was talking about something frivolous like the weather, but the implication was obvious.

_ Don’t get into any shit _ .

But Renjun wasn’t the one who had sat himself on a stranger’s desk and passive-aggressively demanded to know their parents’ incomes and status. He could hardly be blamed if other people started shit with him. That wasn’t his fault; he wasn’t responsible for the actions of other people.

“Then obviously you thought wrong, Na.”

He picked his phone back up and typed out a nonsensical message to the first person in his contacts in Chinese, hoping he looked bored with the whole ordeal rather than superbly pissed.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jaemin raise an eyebrow, look at his friends with something like incredulity and then focus his attention back on Renjun. He stood up.

“No,” Jaemin said, and Renjun felt his blood curdle like spoiled milk. “I didn’t.”

He made to walk away but then turned back to face Renjun and said, a stupid grin on his face, “also, no phones allowed out during school hours. Don’t let me see it again or I’ll have to confiscate it.”

And then he was turning around and walking back over to his desk, sitting himself atop his own desk and sniggering and whispering with his friends. Renjun glared at him, at how he draped himself across his friends and threw his head back with laughter. Renjun felt how the room came back to life around him, as though they had been waiting for permission from this boy with the too-big teeth and snotty personality.

And if he was queen bee, so what, Renjun thought. If he were back in China, if he’d used his actual name, this Na kid wouldn’t have gotten so brave.

_ Don’t get into any shit. _

He bit down the impulse to wave his wealth in Na’s face, resisted the urge to make him back down for acting like such a brat. If he could use his own name, it wouldn’t matter that the Na family were some of the wealthiest people in the world, that their power was some of the greatest in both Korea and the UK. None of it would matter.

But, as it stood, it did matter.

Because Renjun wasn’t Renjun Huang: second son of China’s most influential businessman. Instead, he was Injun Wei, new scholarship kid and a prime target for people to flaunt their power at.

The bell rang, and Renjun watched as the students slipped off of the desks, pulling them apart into neat rows with practised ease. Jaemin didn’t help to move them, and neither did the two he’d approached Renjun with.

He slid into a seat in the second row, and turned around to give Renjun one last, infuriating look before turning to face the front, just as the door opened and the teacher ‒ Mr Williams, according to Renjun’s timetable ‒ walked in.

All the other students rose to their feet, and Renjun followed suit, pushing himself to stand up.

“Good morning, class,” the teacher said. “You may sit.”

The class sat back in their seats.

Renjun looked around, now that no one was staring at him, and saw that people were pulling out what looked like an orange book, along with pads of paper and their pencil cases. He reached into his bag and pulled out his pencil case, but he didn’t have whatever that book was or paper.

Not that he particularly cared. If he failed literature, then so what. It wasn’t like it was important. Distantly, his parents’ threats rang in the back of his head but he ignored them. They wouldn’t go through with it. If only because it would bring shame on them and their inability to parent. That was what he told himself, anyway.

“Today, we are continuing our analysis of Housseini’s portrayal of the treatment of women, focusing on Mariam’s early life in the novel.”

What.

Renjun looked around the classroom again, only to find that everyone else seemed to have perfectly understood whatever it was the teacher had just said, some of them nodding along thoughtfully and others remaining nonchalant. Separately, Renjun knew what most of those words meant. But when put together and spoken as quickly as they had been, he was lost.

The teacher continued to talk about whatever he was talking about and Renjun continued to grow more and more bewildered as words like  _ discriminating controlled exploration _ and  _ juxtaposited foreshadowing _ began to go around the classroom as students began to contribute their ideas on some book Renjun hadn’t read and hadn’t even known existed twenty minutes ago.

He squinted at the electronic whiteboard at the front of the classroom and tried to make some sense of what it said. He didn’t like this. He wasn’t used to being out of his depth and he didn’t like feeling stupid.

“Why don’t we hear from our newest addition to the class? Mr Wei? Mr Wei? Injun?”

Renjun’s head snapped away from the board to where Mr Williams was standing, arms crossed over his chest and irritated expression on his face. Right. Wei. Not Huang.

Renjun shook his head slightly, trying to get himself to focus. “Sorry, what was the question, sir?”

Mr Williams looked unimpressed, but repeated the question anyway. “Do you agree with Mr Lee that Housseini’s ending is baselessly optimistic and fairy-tale-esque?”

Renjun’s gaze flit quickly around the classroom to find that everyone had turned in their seats to look at him. “I don’t have the book, sir,” he said, and hated the snort Jaemin tried very hard to suppress. “I wasn’t told that I needed to.”

The look Williams fixed him with was incredulous at best, disgusted at worst.

“So, you came to my English class without the correct preparation.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” Rejun said tersely.

“And what did you expect to do? Coast by at the back of the classroom and scrape a passing grade for the next two years?”

“Quite honestly, yes.”

Renjun saw how Jaemin sat up a little at that, how he leaned forward to whisper something to one of his friends, his grin less sadistically amused and more normal amused now.

Williams, however, looked furious. “That is not good enough, Mr Wei. It’s your first day so I will let you off,” his voice was alive with concealed anger, “but know that I will not tolerate this insolence in my classes from now on. Get the correct reading materials and catch up with the rest of the class, or you will find that I am not quite so lenient.”

He faced the board again, talking about something or other but Renjun tuned him out. Renjun’s tongue twitched with the urge to argue further, to reveal his identity and make this school as much his playground as his old one had been. But he bit his tongue, held himself back, forced himself to back down, and stared resolutely at the board as though fire wasn’t churning in his gut.

He caught Jaemin’s eye just before the other boy turned back around, long enough to see the pleased glint in his eye. And Renjun’s scowl deepened.

The rest of the lesson went by slowly. It was a confusing whirlwind of words Renjun didn’t understand, and condescending looks from Mr Williams.

It stoked his frustration, listening to people talk about things he couldn’t comprehend. He wasn’t used to feeling stupid and he silently cursed all those who had put him in this position, including himself.

When the class was finally,  _ finally _ over, Renjun was the last out of the classroom. He waited for everyone else to leave before he slung his bag over his shoulder and left. His timetable told him he had physics now, in Cedar building, wherever that was.

He walked out of Oak, pushing past the students walking down the corridors and into the cold sunlight. Oak was at the edge of the school grounds, and next to it ran the metal fence that enclosed the school. He only had to contemplate it for a second before he was making his way to the nearest gate, balling up his timetable and shoving it into his satchel.

The thought of another lesson like the one he’d just had was enough for Renjun to dig his fob out of his bag and press it against the small black box attached to the side of the gate. The gate opened even slower than the other ones had, and he slipped out of it as soon as the gap was wide enough.

Outside of the school, he debated getting the bus into town but then he remembered the glaringly low balance in the new account his old assistant had set up for him and he resigned himself to walking down the hill, silently seething.

The walk there was long, and he followed the route the bus had taken, using the bus stops as signposts to help him find his way. Still, Renjun appreciated the escape from the school and the judgements. It was a good opportunity to clear his mind, where his usual stress-relievers were impossible.

The town was busier now than it had been earlier, though it was still nothing compared to the bustle of the cities Renjun was used to. He wandered through the streets for a bit, taking in the smell of unpolluted air and trying his best to forget about the reality of his situation.

He sat down in the park and watched the three dogs there run around each other, fighting for a tennis ball their owner had thrown.

There was a highstreet in the town, lined with shops and cafés, and banks and restaurants. Renjun walked down it, struggling to maintain his balance when the pavement was uneven and formed of protruding rectangular stones.

He itched for a green jasmine tea, and felt his heart long for his collection of fancy tea sets at home. He looked into one of the coffee shop’s windows, but the prices were out of what his pauper budget could afford. He sighed, and continued his walk down the street.

There was a restaurant about half-way down the street. It was dark inside, not yet open. But, what caught Renjun’s eye was the sheet of paper stuck on the inside of the glass that read  _ help wanted _ .

Renjun stopped in his tracks outside, and tried to peer in through the glass but he couldn’t see anything.

_ Get a job _ , his father had said. And, although Renjun wasn’t exactly in the habit of obeying his father, he couldn’t deny that his empty bank account was urging him to go inside. So he did.

He pulled on the door, happy to find it unlocked, and was hit by the spell of familiar spices. It felt like walking into his own kitchen at home when one of the cooks were preparing dinner and that made homesickness swallow Renjun bottom-up. He pushed past it though, and pulled himself up to his full height in an attempt to appear respectable. He was good at that: maintaining an image.

“Hello?” he called out.

“Sorry, we don’t open until six,” a deep voice replied from somewhere at the back of the restaurant.

“Oh, I’m not here for food; I wanted to enquire about your ‘help wanted’ sign in the front window.”

“Right ‒ give me a minute.”

Renjun waited, and looked around the restaurant. The decor was classier than he’d expected, with a simplistic but not overly so style. It looked like money had gone into it, and Renjun was glad he wouldn’t have to work in some greasy diner or pub.

“Okay,” Renjun looked up to see a man, maybe a few years older than him, walk out of the door marked  _ Kitchen _ , wiping his hands on a teatowel. He had a friendly face, and was smiling amicably. “You want to work here?

“Yes.”

“Have a seat.” He gestured to one of the tables as sat down. Renjun took the chair opposite him. It was comfortable. “What’s your name?”

Renjun debated his answer in his head for a moment before saying, “Injun Wei,” even though he didn’t like it.

“I’m Kun Qian,” the man said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Renjun’s eyes widened. “Are you Chinese?” Renjun asked, unable to stop himself.

Kun nodded and Renjun felt himself smile. “Me too,” he said, switching to his native tongue easily.

Kun’s smile grew. “Oh really? Where are you from?”

“Shanghai,” Renjun said, and immediately had to quell the homesickness that flared in his chest at the name of his home. “What about you?”

“Fujian. You’re new here, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, I just arrived today,” Renjun said, looking down at the table. “Is it that obvious?”

Kun nodded at his uniform. “I went there, too, until I dropped out in year thirteen to open this place. Besides, there’s not too many good places to eat around here on the weekends, so most of them come here. I’d recognise pretty much everyone from the school at this point.”

“You’ve got a really nice place,” Renjun said, giving the restaurant an appreciative surveying. “You dropped out to open it?”

Kun’s smile turned slightly abashed. “Thanks,” he said. “And yeah, I was running around in school trying to keep up with my studies and working part-time jobs at the same time so, trust me, I won’t judge you for needing a little bit of extra cash. I know what it’s like being at that school where everyone else just has to make a call to get anything they want.”

Renjun didn’t quite know what to feel about that. On one hand, he didn’t feel good being lumped in with the poor, ostracised from the rich. But on the other, Kun was so impossibly kind and trying to make ‘Injun’ feel better that it was difficult for even Renjun to be angry.

“Thanks for being understanding,” he said. “I’d hate to say this to the people at the school, but I do really need the money.”

Kun nodded. “Of course, rich kids can be kind of shit.” He smiled then, and it was a private one as he thought of a memory Renjun wasn’t privy to. “Though, don’t write them all off. Without rich kids, this place wouldn’t exist.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of my friends saw how I was struggling and told me he would invest in the restaurant because it was my dream. I owe the entire thing to him.”

“Really? They did that for you?”

Kun shrugged. “He’s a nice guy. One of the nicest I know.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, back to the job. I’m looking for wait staff. What experience do you have?”

“None,” Renjun said, grimacing.

“Right, well, we can work on that. I can give you seven pounds an hour and we all split our tips at the end of each week.”

“Wait?” Renjun startled. “Is that it? You’re just giving me the job?”

Kun shrugged again. “You said you needed the money and I need a waiter. Besides, there’s not really anywhere else that’s hiring. I don’t need your CV or anything, don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you so much,” Renjun said, surprising himself with how much he meant it.

Kun leaned over and ruffled his hair. “No need to thank me. Now, do you have a phone? We need to sort out your shifts.”

  
  


When Renjun got back to the school, it was as an employed man and the sun was setting. He crept around to one of the back gates of the school, in an attempt to avoid being caught, before beginning to try and make his way back to Juniper.

As it turned out, he needn’t have bothered. Because Headmaster Moon was stood outside his building with an impressive frown and his arms crossed over his chest.

“Mr Wei,” he said, voice flat, “glad you could finally make it. My office, now.”

And then he started to walk and Renjun had to hurry after him.

Headmaster Moon led him to Willow, and then up two flights of stairs. His office was at the very top of the building and it was large, with a big circular window behind a long wooden desk and bookshelves lining either side of the walls.

Renjun took a hesitant seat when Headmaster Moon sat in his own chair and waited for him to say something.

“So, Injun, you have only attended one lesson today. And, in that one lesson you did bother to attend, you spoke back to your teacher, were ill-prepared, and did not pay attention or participate. Care to tell me why?” His voice was strained, as though he were barely containing his anger.

Renjun had many reasons, though they were more strong feelings than things that could be eloquently articulated. He opened his mouth once, possibly to say something along the lines of,  _ I was feeling dumb and angsty so I thought I’d run away and mope for a bit _ , but closed it again upon realising that probably wasn’t a great idea to say that.

Luckily, it seemed as though Headmaster Moon was not expecting an actual answer.

“It is your first day, and you have already proven yourself a disappointment.” Ouch. And maybe it would hurt more if Renjun hadn’t heard it a thousand times before. “I told you this morning that the behaviour you exhibited at your old school would not be acceptable here. And yet you continue to behave in this way? I understand it is only your first day and this is a big change, but I also need you to understand that you need to rectify your behaviour as soon as possible, or, no matter how much your parents have given the school, there will no longer be a place for you here. Do you understand?”

Renjun nodded, his grip on his chair’s armrests growing tight.

Headmaster Moon sighed.

“You will receive detention after school every day for the next two weeks as well as on Saturday and the Saturday afterwards for truancy and disruptive behaviour.”

“Yes, sir.” 

“I told you this morning that I believed you could change and I hold true to that. Do not disappoint me further, Renjun.” Renjun was grateful to hear his name ‒ his actual name ‒ spoken aloud. And, although Renjun thrived on disobeying authority, particularly where his parents were concerned, there was a part of him that really did not want to disappoint Headmaster Moon. “I have high hopes for the person you can become, so long as you try.”

He sighed again. “You may leave now, Mr Wei. Go to your lessons tomorrow; sign up for some extra curriculars; attend your detentions. And I hope you won’t be in this office again for a very long time.”

Renjun stood up. “Thank you, sir.”

Being told off by a teacher wasn’t exactly something foreign to Renjun, but he still made his way to the door of Headmaster Moon’s office on shaky feet.

There weren’t too many students in the grounds when Renjun walked back to Juniper, but there was the odd group sitting on the grass or on a bench and Renjun avoided their attention as best he could.

He finally made it to his room and inserted the key into the lock, looking forward to collapsing on his bed and calling his friends, who he was sure would pick up no matter the time difference.

He was surprised when the door was flung open before he could turn the key to reveal a boy perhaps an inch or two taller than him with curly brown hair and a face-splitting grin.

“You must be Injun!” the boy said, grabbing Renjun’s outstretched wrist with a clammy hand. He had an accent Renjun couldn’t quite place. “It’s so nice to meet you; I’ve been wanting a roommate for, like, ever.” He pulled Renjun into the room, almost throwing him off balance. “I’m Yangyang Liu.”

He changed his grip on Renjun’s wrist so that we could shake his hand, all the while maintaining both eye contact and his grin with the power to rival the sun. When he finally let go, Renjun took his hand back quickly and rubbed at his wrist.

“How do you know my name?” He asked, resisting the urge to recoil from the intensity of his gaze.

“Headmaster Moon told me,” he said proudly. “He also said that I have been designated to show you around, since we’re in a lot of the same classes.”

“Oh really?” Renjun asked, still slightly wary but he was surprised to find himself warming up to his kid. There was something magnetic about his energy that even Renjun couldn’t repel. “What are you taking?”

“Double maths, physics, and chemistry,” Yangyang recited easily. “Headmaster Moon already told me yours. English?” He laughed. “It’s a bit of a random one.”

“My parents chose them,” Renjun said, a little more defensively than he would have liked.

Yangyang nodded with understanding. “I get that. A lot of the kids here are the same. Where did you go before? I’ve never heard of you before.” 

Yangyang didn’t allow for a single moment of silence in the conversation, and Renjun could see himself growing irritated with that. For now, though, he appreciated the lack of awkwardness he provided.

“I went to school back home in China.”

“You’re Chinese?” Yangyang nearly shouted, his eyes practically sparkling. “I’m from Taiwan!” He started speaking in Mandarin then, and though it was a little patchy, Renjun savoured his second taste of home for the day. “I was only there for a few years, though, then we moved to Germany and then here. Oh! I have to introduce you to my friends when I get the chance. There’s a whole bunch of us from China who kind of all migrated to each other. You’ll love them.”

“I can’t wait to meet them,” Renjun said, wholly meaning it. He would take anything that reminded him of home, made him feel a little less lonely.

Yangyang pulled Renjun to sit on his bed. It was then that Renjun realised that Yangyang had cleaned it since earlier, with things now arranged in an orderly fashion on the shelves, the bed made, and his desk clear. Yangyang, seeing his bewildered look, scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

“I’m sorry it was kind of a tip earlier.” He looked a little goofy like this, and Renjun had to stifle back a good-natured laugh. “I overslept this morning and didn’t have time to make it presentable before I had to go. I’ll try to be better now that you’re here. I even lost five points for us, which sucks.”

“What does that mean?”

Yangyang’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh, right. You wouldn’t know. Okay so basically, we have a house system where everyone in the school is sorted into one of four houses and over the year we can earn and lose points for our house and at the end of the year, one house gets the house cup and a special prize.”

“What’s the prize?” Renjun asked, as the competitive side of him came alive at the thought of a competition.

Yangyang shrugged. “It changes every year. Last year, the winning house were flown out for a week-long stay in France. They’re always really good prizes paid for by Headmaster Moon and the losing heads of house, so we try as hard as we can to win.”

“Which house am I in?”

Yangyang pointed to the blue bar on his blazer. “You’re the same as me: Summoners. I know; it’s a horrible name. They’re all named after the Canterbury Tales, even though some of them make no sense.” Yangyang held up four fingers and began to list them off. “You’ve got The Summoners ‒ blue, The Knights‒ red, The Physicians‒ green, and The Shipmen ‒ yellow. Our head of house is Mr Jones; he’s a maths teacher.”

Renjun hummed. “That’s pretty cool. How do we get points?”

“Good behaviour or inter-house competitions. There are loads. Most of them are towards the end of the year, besides decathlon.”

Renjun nodded. “What else do I need to know?” There was only a hint of worry in his tone, but apparently Yangyang detected it.

Yangyang’s grin widened somehow. He slung an arm around Renjun’s shoulders, and Renjun was surprised to find that he didn’t mind.

“Don’t worry, Injunnie,” he said. “As long you’ve got me, you have nothing to worry about.”

Injunnie. That didn’t sound horrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you aren't interested in learning about the english schooling system, please just head straight to chapter 2 and thanks for reading this far ^^
> 
> School year starts in September. One week break in October, two week break over Christmas, one week break in February, two week break over Easter, one week break in May, end of year/summer holidays 5-6 weeks over August.  
> Lower School:  
> Year 7: ages 11-12  
> Year 8: 12-13  
> Year 9: 13-14  
> Upper School:  
> Year 10: 14-15  
> Year 11: 15-16 ‒ ChenJi ‒ will take GCSE’s at the end of the year  
> GCSE’s: exams in usually about 10 subjects, graded from 1-9, where 9 is an A** and 1 is a fail, 4 is a low C/pass and 7 is an A, form the basis for what A-levels you can take and give unis an idea about how likely it is you’ll get the grades to get in  
> Sixth Form:  
> Year 12: 16-17 ‒ 00 line  
> Year 13: 17-18 ‒ ‘99+98 line ‒ will take A-Levels at the end of the year and then go to uni  
> A-Levels: exams in 3-4 subjects, very difficult and very important, graded from U to A*  
> University:  
> Second year: 19-20 ‒ ‘95+96 line
> 
> if you have any questions please feel free to ask this isn't the greatest explanation ever haha 
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/whatisanult)   
>  [cc](https://curiouscat.me/whatisanult)


	2. Chapter 2

Maths. Maths was an essential component of the universe, basic for any understanding of the world around them. Maths was universal no matter the language in which it was taught, and that meant Renjun was comfortable in his seat and his skin as Mr Jones talked through a problem on vectors.

Yangyang was hunched over in the desk next to him, frantically copying down Jones’ working as best he could, though his fountain pen was smudged all over the side of his hand. Renjun bit back a laugh and turned his attention back to the board. He figured, with Yangyang’s notes out of commission, he may as well pay enough attention to help work through the question with him later.

Jaemin was a little in front of him and to the right, not at all sitting with the relaxed posture he had had in English. He looked more like Yangyang now, his page filled with messy scribbles Renjun could vaguely connect to the numbers on the board. 

Renjun smirked with some sort of vicious satisfaction and kicked back in his chair.

“Mr Na,” Jones said, and Renjun revelled in the panic that flashed across Jaemin’s face before he quickly disguised it. “Where would you go from here to find the ratio OA to OB?”

Renjun watched as Jaemin’s eyes scanned over his sheet of paper, looking for anything that might point him in the right direction. Renjun resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This wasn’t something Jones had mentioned this lesson; Jaemin wouldn’t be able to find it amidst his scrappy notes.

“Do you…” Jaemin started. It was the first time Renjun had heard him sound anything less than confident, and he couldn’t help the sick giddiness that ran through him at that. “Solve them simultaneously?”

Renjun snorted. Perhaps too loudly; he didn’t care. Jaemin’s glare would have made a lesser man whimper, but Renjun returned it with a happy smile.

“Maybe you would care to enlighten us then, Mr Wei?” Jones said, his tone irritated.

“Equate the coefficients,” Renjun said easily, not looking away from Jaemin; he didn’t want to miss how anger flared across Jaemin’s face with maybe a hint of insecurity. “Obviously,” he tacked on, just to see Jaemin’s eyes grow even darker. And maybe it was cruel, but Renjun couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not when the way Jaemin’s eyebrows furrowed together and he turned away with a huff was so sweet.

“Correct.” Jones sounded surprised but Renjun didn’t let that offend him. “Well done, Mr Wei. I’m impressed.”

The teacher turned back to the board and Renjun made a point of meeting Jaemin’s eyes when he looked over to glare at him again.

When Jones dismissed them, Renjun packed his things up leisurely and waited for Yangyang to do the same. They both had physics next, and Renjun was glad for a guide so that he wouldn’t have to wander around looking for Cedar.

Jaemin stalked out of the classroom quickly, one of his friends that was always with him hurrying after him and slipping an arm over Jaemin’s shoulder that Jaemin seemed to relax into.

“You’re actually insane, Injunnie,” Yangyang said, suddenly right next to Renjun and sounding beyond delighted. “I can’t believe you did that to fucking Jaemin Na of all people.”

Renjun huffed. “So what if his family’s powerful? I don’t take kindly to people who make fun of me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Yangyang said. He began to walk out of the classroom, and Renjun followed after him.“Jaemin likes to intimidate the new kids ‒ make sure they know he runs this school, you know?” Renjun tried not to feel peeved at how that was exactly what he used to do, back at his old school when he could use his own name. “He’s probably the richest kid here, especially when the new wager with the Huangs is made official.”

Renjun’s mood soured at that, but he didn’t let it show.

“Who cares?” Renjun said.

Yangyang laughed. “Most of the people at this school care. But I’m glad you don’t.”

“You said he runs this school,” Renjun said, “how?”  _ How do I undermine his power _ was the question left unsaid.

“Well, he’s captain of most of the school’s champion sports teams, he’s a prefect, house captain for the Knights, and president of year council, set to take head boy next year.”

“Impressive,” Renjun murmured.

“Yeah, but it’s still not much compared to his brother.”

“Taeyong?”

Yangyeang nodded. “He was all those things and actually nice.”

“You know him?”

Yangyang hummed positively. “He only graduated two years ago and I’ve been here since year seven. He was great. Literally perfect.”

Renjun thought about that for a moment. Sicheng, while not perfect, was a miles better son than Renjun was. He shook the idea from his head.

“Who are those two he’s always hanging out with?”

“Jeno Kim and Donghyuck Lee,” Yangyang said. “Jeno and Jaemin have been friends since like nursery, and their families are all connected like all rich families are. He’s secretary of the student council and prefect for our house.”

Renjun blanched. “Ours?

“Yeah. It’s fine, though, he’s easily the most likeable out of the three. I’m quite close with him ‒ though he’s a little shy when you first meet him. He mainly acts as Jaemin and Donghyuck’s impulse control.”

“And the other one? Donghyuck?”

“Evil genius, main lead in every school play, and my best guess for the next prime minister.”

Renjun laughed. “They’re both rich, too?”

“Grotesquely so,” Yangyang said. “Even for this school.”

Renjun sighed. His usual gauge for people was their net worth, but it seemed to mean less and less at this school.

They walked past the boy in question, and Donghyuck abruptly stopped talking to whoever was in front of him to level Renjun with a look he found genuinely chilling but tried his best not to show.

Yangyang pulled him away by the arm. “Don’t start anything with them, Injun,” he said. “They own this school, and they’re decent enough but only if you don’t challenge them.”

But Yangyang didn’t know Renjun well enough to know that he thrived off of a challenge.

“What about you? You said you were close with Jeno ‒ what do you think of them?”

Yangyang seemed to think it over for a moment. “Jeno’s basically an angel, Donghyuck’s something akin to a melodramatic guard dog, and Jaemin could do with taking that stick out of his arse.”

Renjun wrinkled his nose and tried to forget that people had used to talk about him and his friends things like that. He felt strangely protective over it.

“But,” Yangyang said, “they can be nice when they want to be and they won’t want to be if you keep at it the way you are.”

“I get it,” Renjun said. “I won’t start any shit.”

Yangyang looked relieved as they finally stopped outside of their classroom.

But it couldn’t be helped if Jaemin started shit with him. And Renjun hoped he did; he was up for a challenge. Anything to make this shithole more interesting.

  
  


“Just go grab whatever you want to eat, put your pin in, and then go sit down,” Yangyang said, pointing to the three queues at different places in the dining hall. “Lunch we pay for ourselves because some sixth-formers go off-site for it but I can’t be asked to walk down the hill.”

Renjun nodded, and made his way to the first queue, Yangyang right behind him.

Yangyang began talking about the food, linking it with some weird story about bees somehow and Renjun nodded along as he grabbed a sandwich and a carton of strawberry milk. The queue was moving relatively quickly, and Renjun looked out into the dining hall to see if there were any empty tables.

In his old school, any table he would have wanted would be his, and he was still struggling to come to terms with the concept of that not being the case for Injun Wei.

The dining hall was huge, and Ash was easily one of the largest buildings on campus because of it. The roof was high, and small wooden tables ran in neat lines down the length of the hall. There were large windows on either side, looking out onto yet more tables and a playing field where Renjun could see at least five separate games of football happening.

Yangyang seemed to realise what he was looking for and said, “don’t worry, we can sit with my friends. I’m sure they’ll love you ‒ most of them are Chinese as well.”

“Did you do that on purpose?” Renjun looked away from the hall and at Yangyang, amused.

Yangyang cracked a grin. “Nope, we just all sort of gravitated I think.”

Renjun nodded sagely. “It happens.”

Yangyang laughed and Renjun couldn’t help the smile that came over his face.

They reached the front of the line, and Renjun input his pin from memory, wincing at the low balance in his account. He made a mental note to ask Kun about his first shift sooner rather than later.

He waited for Yangyang to buy his food and then they set off across the dining hall, through the din of hungry teenagers.

“So who are your friends?”

“I’m not sure who’ll be sitting with us today ‒ it changes depending on who’s got what going on and stuff, you know?” Renjun nodded. “But there’s Yukhei‒”

Renjun collided with something.

“Mind where you’re fucking going why don’t you?”

Correction: someone.

Renjun looked up to see Jaemin Na, seething with rage and shirt soaked in brown liquid, a cardboard cup in his hand. His face was contorted in a snarl, and his eyes were filled with a kind of intrinsic hatred.

Renjun met his gaze eagerly.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding very not sorry. “My bad.”

Jaemin didn’t stop glaring at him. “Sorry doesn’t get this stain out of my shirt and it doesn’t stop my flesh from burning.”

Renjun levelled him with a look and hoped he looked bored, and not like he was having the absolute time of his life seeing Jaemin furious and not perfect for once. He wished his father could see.  _ Who was the embarrassment now? _ he wanted to ask.

“What would you like me to say, then?” He cocked his head to the side. “Whoops?”

Jaemin let out a noise too close to a growl for Renjun to be comfortable and it was then that Renjun realised the room ‒ the entire massive hall ‒ had grown quiet.

Jaemin’s gaze slipped from angry into something malicious, and Renjun felt his muscles contract as his hair stood up on end. Jaemin’s eyes narrowed, and his grip around his half-empty coffee cup grew impossibly tight. His mouth stretched into a smirk but there was no mirth about it.

He looked downright devillish, and Renjun felt his throat seize up. This was Jaemin Na, he thought, power personified.

“Buy me a new coffee,” Jaemin said. And, on the surface, it sounded flippant but you’d have to be an idiot to ignore the threat hiding beneath it like a serpent beneath a blade of grass.

Renjun considered that for a brief moment.

“No,” he said, and revelled in the angry fire that brewed in Jaemin’s eyes before he could reign it back into something more quietly terrifying.

Jaemin took a step forward.

“I’m not going to say it again, Wei. Buy me another coffee to make up for the one you spilt on my uniform. And be glad I’m not making you buy me a new shirt as well.” 

Renjun stepped closer as well, matching Jaemin.

“No, Na” he said, and was overjoyed at the fury radiating off of Jaemin.

Jaemin opened his mouth but then Jeno was behind him, and placing a placating hand on his shoulder. Jaemin closed his mouth but didn’t turn to look at his friend, holding Renjun’s gaze.

Jaemin breathed out, and Renjun watched the tension bleed out from his shoulders as he did so. Jaemin tutted.

“Fine, don’t,” he said, wholly too blithely. “I’ll be the bigger person.”

Renjun blinked, confused, as Jaemin turned away and made to walk away with Jeno’s arm now draped over his shoulders. A weird mix of disappointment and relief rose in Renjun, though he tried to push it back down.

But then Jaemin turned, hands in his pocket and a glint in his eyes. When he spoke, it was to Jeno, but he didn’t look away from Renjun.

“He probably can’t afford to buy one anyway.”

And it was true but Renjun couldn’t give that to him.

An audible gasp seemed to ripple through the students then and Renjun could only stand there and watch Jaemin walk away, presumably, to get himself a new shirt. Jaemin didn’t turn to look back at Renjun once but he didn’t have to for Renjun to know he was smirking.

Renjun felt Yangyang grip his arm and pull him closer to his side, felt the eyes of the student body bore into him.

“Come on, Injun,” Yangyang said into his ear. “Let’s go eat somewhere else.”

Renjun nodded absently and let Yangyang pull him away.

  
  


Detention was an empty room bar one teacher and one other student. The teacher nodded at Renjun when he walked in and gestured for him to sit at one of the desks. Renjun took a seat in the middle row.

The boy behind him had his head bedded on his arms so Renjun couldn’t see his face and assumed he was sleeping but, beyond that, there wasn’t much for Renjun to go on for what he was supposed to be doing. The teacher appeared to be marking a stack of papers, and seemed wholly focused on that, not sparing Renjun a second glance.

He sat in silence for a moment, before counting the  _ ticks _ of the clock grew tedious. He reached into his bag and pulled out a blank pad of paper and a pen.

He let his pen wander over the page, messy lines coming together to form a flower. He drew a few before his mind drifted elsewhere. It drifted home.

He drew his favourite teapot, and the cactus plant in Kunhang’s room, and the ukelele Dejun used to play. Maybe it was better, to have these memories engraved into a random page of his notebook than to have them swimming around his head and catching him at unexpected times with bursts of emotion.

Maybe it was better.

“Okay,” the teacher said, and Renjun’s pen streaked across the page with how hard he jolted. “Time’s up. You can go now.”

Renjun’s eyes went quickly to where a clock was mounted on the wall, and almost blanched upon seeing the time: four o’clock. It had been an hour.

The other student was already half-way out the door when Renjun managed to pull himself out of his stupor and shove his stuff into his bag. He hurried out of the classroom, only to immediately run into a body at least double his size.

It took a moment for him to brace himself, another one to prepare for a fight with Jaemin, and another to look up and realise that this was not Jaemin in any way shape or form.

Rather, looking down at him was a giant with a wide grin and kind eyes. Hands larger than Renjun’s shoulders reached out to steady him on his feet.

“Woah there,” he said.

Renjun was about to bite out something to get him to move, wholly fed up with this day and longing for his bed when he caught sight of Yangyang, hidden behind the giant form of the student. Renjun closed his mouth, but still shook off the hands on his shoulders.

“Injun!” Yangyang chirped, and maybe the tiredness went away, if only by a fraction. “These are my friends.”

Renjun’s eyes widened and he looked around at them. Besides the giant, there was a smaller boy with an impish grin and his tie loosened to the point it was practically just draped around his neck. There was something else about the boy’s gaze Renjun couldn’t quite place; something almost knowing. There was another boy, perhaps just a little smaller than the first giant, though he was slightly drawn in on himself.

Yangyang pointed to the first giant. “This is Yukhei; he’s from Hong Kong but his Mandarin’s gotten really good.” Then he pointed at the smallest one. “This is Chenle; he’s from Shanghai just like you. And this,” he pointed to the final member of the little group, “is Jungwoo. He’s not Chinese but he’s Yukhei’s boyfriend and he’s been trying to learn.”

Renjun knew most of them by name. Particularly Chenle, whose family rivalled Renjun’s own as one of the wealthiest families in China. But where Renjun’s money was old, earned from a decades-old business, the Zhong’s were newer; they were a tech company.

Renjun’s father didn’t like them.

Yangyang sounded proud, but also a little nervous ‒ as though he were waiting for approval on both sides. Renjun thought briefly of the drawings sitting in his bag and pulled his lips into the best smile he could manage. Kunhang and Dejun wouldn’t want him to be lonely.

“Nice to meet you all,” he said. “I’m Injun Wei.”

The name still felt foreign on his tongue but he ignored it. And maybe he was imagining it, but he could have sworn he saw Chenle suppress a snort.

Yukhei took his hand and swung it up and down enthusiastically.

“It’s good to meet you.” His voice was deep and booming. “Yangyang’s just been telling us all about you.”

Renjun shot Yangyang a puzzled look ‒ he hadn’t been aware there was that much to tell ‒ but Yangyang seemed to be purposefully avoiding his eye line.

Renjun laughed nervously and did his best to look back at Yukhei, though his stare was pretty intense and Renjun’s hand near disappeared where Yukhei was holding his.

“Get out of his face, Xuxi,” Jungwoo said with a softer voice than Renjun would have assumed from his stature. “You’re making him nervous.” He turned to Renjun. “It’s lovely to meet you, Injun.”

Yukhei instantly took a step back and scratched his head sheepishly. “Sorry. I just got so excited.” He smiled apologetically. “Yangyang’s been complaining about not having a roommate for a while now‒” Renjun almost scoffed at that. Who wouldn’t want their own room? “But now he’s got one and I just feel like a proud mother hen watching him make friends.”

Yukhei wiped a fake tear from his eye and Yangyang pushed him, embarrassment clear on his face. Yukhei did a good job of pretending as though the shove could have actually hurt him in any way. It was oddly endearing, Renjun thought.

“Let’s just go sit outside,” Yangyang grumbled.

Chenle laughed then, so high-pitched that it tore through Renjun’s eardrums.

“Shut up, Chenle,” Yangyang said. “God, you’re so loud.”

“He’s right,” Yukhei said, in a voice equally as loud.

Jungwoo rolled his eyes, but it was overwhelmingly fond as he grabbed Yukhei by the arm and steered him out of the building, following after where Yangyang was stalking with much more forceful steps than necessary.

Chenle sidled up beside Renjun and said, in a voice so quiet Renjun did a double-take and almost didn’t register it was coming from him, “ _ Injun Wei _ , huh?”

Renjun hoped his gulp wasn’t audible. “Yes, that’s my name.” But it tasted like a lie in his mouth.

Chenle laughed again, not quite as loudly as his previous one, but still bad enough to make Renjun’s head ring. He fixed a lopsided grin, looking far too happy for how quickly Renjun’s heart was beating before he said, “you might have blown off all your public appearances, but I know what the youngest Huang son looks like.”

Renjun stopped dead in his tracks, and Chenle followed suit. Renjun felt his face morph into an expression of panic, and Chenle laughed again.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m sure you have a good reason for hiding your identity.”

“My parents,” Renjun managed to get out. “If it gets out ‒ they’ll disown me.”

It wasn’t the best way to put it, but Renjun’s heartbeat was loud in his ears and he just pushed out the words he could. Luckily, it seemed Chenle understood.

Chenle's face grew more sombre than Renjun would have been able to picture on him if he weren’t literally staring at it. He nodded slowly, understanding.

“I get it. I won’t tell; I promise.” He looked around. “You can trust me.”

Renjun sighed, and though he didn’t quite fully believe it yet, there was something about Chenle and the earnestness to his wide eyes that compelled him to. He let out a long breath of relief.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice small.

Chenle shook his head. “It’s no problem. You’re one of us now.” 

Renjun didn’t quite know what to think about that but he was spared having to think of an answer when Yangyang yelled, “are you two coming or not?”

Chenle’s grin was back in full force now. “Let’s go, Injun?”

“Yeah,” Renjun said. “Let’s.”

It was strange.

It was strange, sitting here as part of a group of friends ‒ not quite an outsider but also not quite an actual part. It was strange, having new friends when he’d had the same ones since he was a toddler. It was weird walking into something established without him and having it accommodate his arrival. It was strange to go head-first into inside jokes he didn’t understand, and dynamics he had to concentrate to get his head around.

It wasn’t a bad strange, though. It was nice.

They didn’t get back to their room until it was already dark outside, but Renjun found his face sore with smiling.

Yangyang groaned and fell onto his bed. “I’ve got so much work to do,” he said, but the sound was muffled where he was pressing his face into his pillow.

Renjun laughed at the sight. “I’ll help you,” he said automatically. It was a familiar sight, one of his friends lamenting the pains of school work.

Friends. Sicheng would be proud.

Yangyang lifted his head up and turned to face him, eyes comically wide. “You will?”

“Of course. But you have to help me figure out what books I need to buy for which lessons.” Of course, he’d have to earn enough money first. Maybe he could convince his brother to funnel him a bit of cash for school expenses.

Yangyang sat up and grinned. “Deal.”

“Why do we need to know what the fucking maximum daily gust was in Jacksonville in May 1987? Why does anyone need to know that?”

Yangyang laughed and patted Renjun on the shoulder. “To get the most respected A-Level.”

“Your entire schooling system is bullshit.”

“I’m not going to disagree with you on that.”

They walked out of Hawthorn and headed for Ash, hoping to get a seat in the sixth form common room for their free period. It was a short walk, not too cold, and Yangyang chattered on about the importance of being able to recall cloud coverage off the top of your head. Laughing wasn’t something Renjun had expected to do so much in England.

He made a mental note to call Kunhang and Dejun and let them know he was doing well.

They made it to Ash in a couple of minutes and Renjun instantly spotted Yangyang’s ‒ and his now, too, he supposed ‒ friends sitting at a table along with someone else Renjun didn’t recognise. He was wearing circular glasses and his uniform was impossibly neat. He was laughing so loudly Renjun could almost hear it from across the room, clapping his hands together wildly as he watched Yukhei and Jungwoo argue without malice.

He made to go over and join them, when Yangyang wrapped a hand around his arm and pulled him to a stop.

“Look,” he said, pointing at a large noticeboard stood in front of the fireplace.

“I’m looking,” Renjun mused.

Yangyang rolled his eyes. “It’s the extra-curricular sign-up board. Come on.”

“But why?” Renjun moaned, “I don’t want to sign up for any extra-curriculars because I’m not an eleven year old desperate to prove they’re interesting.”

Yangyang shot him a derisive look. “You’re signing up for something. Because otherwise you’ll just mope around by yourself while we’re all busy being active citizens of the school.”

“That doesn’t sound like a negative to me.”

“If you don’t, I will stay up all night singing.”

Renjun debated that for a moment. “Fine,” he finally gave in. He stopped resisting and let Yangyang drag him over to the board with a triumphant giggle.

The board was big, and the entire thing was covered in multi-coloured sheets of paper pinned up by drawing pins. Club names were printed across the top in bold lettering, and some of them were decorated with pictures and other such poor graphic design that Renjun couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at.

“Anything catch your eye?” Yangyang said, already signing his name on the piece of paper marked  _ Lacrosse _ before moving on to another one.

“Not really,” Renjun murmured, eyes scanning through the array of paper half-heartedly.

“There has to be something you enjoy,” Yangyang said, now signing up to clay pigeon shooting. “You can’t convince me that all you like to do is maths and moan.”

Renjun inhaled, offended. “I like lots of things.”

Yangyang stopped his tirade of signing up to things to level Renjun with a look. “Like what?”

Renjun thought about the drawings in the back of his notebook, and the sketchbook at the bottom of his suitcase he hadn’t taken out since he’d arrived. He shook the thought from his mind and turned back to the board, reading over the papers quickly.

“Orchestra,” he said, picking the first thing he saw that he had some semblance of a connection to.

“Orchestra,” Yangyang sounded out. “What do you play?”

“Violin,” Renjun said. And then he took Yangyang’s pen out of his hand to write his name on the paper.

“You any good?”

Renjun straightened up and flashed Yangyang a cocky smirk. “The best.” And he hoped that would put an end to the questions. He didn’t want to get into it: the long hours, the  _ not good enough _ ’s, and the constant strive for approval. It was easier to just be arrogant.

“Ooh!” Fortunately, it seemed Yangyang was unbothered. “Sign up for academic decathlon with me.”

Yangyang scawled his name onto the list, and then Renjun’s.

“Wait, I didn’t say I would‒”

“Too bad, you’re doing it.” Yangyang stuck his tongue out at him. “I really want to win this year and I think Summoners might have a chance with you bringing up the score on the maths round.”

“What even is it?” Renjun asked, resigning himself to whatever it was.

“It’s like an intelligence competition, basically. There’s a national one where a bunch of schools in the country compete to find the smartest one. And to pick the team before the actual one starts, we have our own inter-house one just before Christmas where each house gets their own team and we have a mini decathlon. You win like house points and stuff.”

Yangyang looked out into the common room and he apparently found what he was looking for, his face settling into a sullen scowl. Renjun followed his line of sight to find Donghyuck, sitting leaning into Jaemin’s side and both of them staring at a laptop screen as they whispered between themselves.

“The Knights have won for the past nine years. We thought we had a chance last year when Taeyong left, but Jaemin got them the victory with his obscure knowledge of cattle farming in pacific north-western America.” His tone was bitter, but when Yangyang turned his attention back to Renjun, his eyes were nothing but determined.

“We’re taking them down this year. I can feel it.”

And there was something about that, about the conviction he said it with and the fire that Renjun could almost see flickering behind the irises of his eyes that spread to Renjun.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s take the bastards down.”

Yangyang grinned. They started to walk to their friends’ table, where the one Renjun didn’t know had left, leaving Yukhei and Jungwoo by themselves. Yangyang was telling Renjun more about how the decathlon worked and Renjun was trying his hardest to understand it. Renjun’s phone started to buzz in his pocket and he smiled apologetically at Yangyang as he answered it.

“Renjun,” sand Kunhang’s voice over the line and Renjun couldn’t help the involuntarily fond smile that came over his face. The sound of his own name ‒ his actual name ‒ washed over him like a warm wave of water. “How are you? I miss you. Dejun’s ditched me for cram school and my mum keeps telling me to cut onions but they hurt my eyes.”

Renjun laughed, and walked closer to one of the walls for privacy.

“Do you not have homework to do?”

Kunhang snorted. “As though you’ve ever done a piece of homework in your life.”

“I did yours for you when you were sick.”

“And I’m eternally grateful.”

Renjun shook his head, breathing out a laugh. “You sound it. I miss you, too, though. You’ll never guess what I just signed up‒”

His phone was plucked out of his hand. He whirled around.

“Hey!” 

Jaemin Na stood behind him, Donghyuck on his left. Jaemin ended Renjun’s call and smiled down at him, nothing warm about it ‒ only mocking.

“Sorry, Wei, but I did tell you. No phones out during school hours unless you have express permission from a prefect or member of staff.”

He waved Renjun’s phone in front of his face.

“God,” Donghyuck said, face morphing into disbelief. He held out his hand and Jaemin dropped Renjun’s phone into it easily. “When the fuck is this thing from?” He laughed, though it was more like a cackle than anything else. “It weighs like a brick.”

He pretended like the phone was dragging his hand down and Jaemin threw his head back to laugh.  _ It wasn’t that funny _ , Renjun thought indignantly.

Donghyuck tossed the phone through the air and Renjun’s heart stuttered in his chest but Jaemin caught it with effortless nonchalance and slipped it inside the inner pocket of his blazer.

“You can get your…” he paused, wrinkling his nose. Donghyuck laughed, a musical thing that didn’t sound nearly cruel enough to suit him. “… Phone back at the end of the day from the student council room. See you then, Wei.”

With that, the pair of them turned and went back to where they’d been sitting before, still laughing. Yangyang sidled up to Renjun’s side a moment later.

“Jesus, they are such twats,” he said, and Renjun found himself nodding in agreement.

“Are they allowed to do that? Just take other people’s shit?”

Yangyang nodded sadly. “Prefect privileges.”

Renjun seethed for a moment. “Has he always been like this?”

“Jaemin? Yeah, pretty much. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up the wrong side of rich. You become an entitled, spoiled brat. All of them are like that when you don’t have to do a thing for yourself your entire life.”

Renjun frowned at that. The words hit a sore spot, and he had half a mind to counter that. Part of him wanted to argue in defense of those types of kids, being one himself. But he bit down on his tongue and forced himself to remember that he was Injun Wei, a scholarship kid.

“You say that like you’re not rich yourself,” he said, an attempt at humour.

“Yeah, but like, not  _ Na _ rich, you know? That’s more money than anyone needs and he walks around with it like a chip on his shoulder.”

Renjun shook his head, hoping it would help to clear it. He didn’t think he would be able to handle anymore of this conversation, not when Renjun Huang had had these things said about him his entire life.

“Come on,” he said, smiling as best he could. “Let’s go play cards.”

Yangyang smiled brightly. “Let’s hope Yukhei brought his deck.”

  
  


“Sorry, I can’t come with,” Yangyang pouted, “I’ve got cross-stitching try-outs.”

“Why do you have to try out for cross-stitching? I doubt it’s a very competitive circuit.”

“Well then you’ve clearly never cross-stitched.”

“You’re right; I haven’t. And that’s not something I’m ashamed of,” Renjun said, suppressing a snigger.

Yangyang huffed. “Whatever. The student council room is  _ W1H _ . Have fun getting your phone back.”

“Have fun with your cut-throat cross-stitching try-outs!” Renjun sing-songed.

“Shut up, Wei.”

Renjun laughed as he watched Yangyang stalk out of the building, before turning and making his way towards Willow. He thought he was getting the hang of it now: the irregular lay-out of the buildings and his lessons. It had taken just a little over a week, and his books still hadn’t arrived, but Yangyang had shown him how to use the library so he was just about surviving.

He walked down the narrow, carpeted corridor of Willow, looking for the one marked  _ W1H _ . It seemed to find him first though, as a mix of voices he both recognised and didn’t drifted out into the hallway.

“Well, when Taeyong was here‒” an unfamiliar, accented voice was saying before they were cut off.

“Yeah, but he's not here, is he?” That was Jaemin, and he sounded even snarkier than usual, which, Renjun thought, was quite the achievement.

“Jaemin,” the voice said, far more placatingly than Jaemin deserved, Renjun thought, “the changes Taeyong made while he was at this school made it a lot better for the majority of students and I cannot see why you are so desperate to undo everything he did.”

Renjun could almost hear Jaemin rolling his eyes, and had to fight the urge to do the same.

“What’s the point in you being head boy if you just keep everything the same as Taeyong did? Your job is to make changes, Lee, not get your head stuck up‒”

“Nana,” he heard another voice, quiet but reprimanding. It was Donghyuck, Renjun realised,.

Renjun frowned in confusion. This was the first time he'd seen them at odds.

Jaemin sighed loudly.

“Fine, we'll keep it the way Taeyong did,” he said, as though it physically pained him to do so.

“Okay, well moving on to our next item…”

Rejun took that as his cue, and knocked on the door. The voice that had been speaking quietened before saying, “Come in.”

Renjun pushed the door open and was greeted by the sight of Jaemin slumped backwards in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, and legs stretched out in front of him. His scowl morphed into mocking grin when he saw Renjun. The desks were arranged in an open-ended rectangle around the edges of the room, with who Renjun guessed were members of the student council sitting behind them.

The boy at the head table, sat in the centre spoke and Renjun had to tear his eyes away from Jaemin. “Can we help you?”

It was the boy that had been sitting with Yukhei and Jungwoo earlier, he realised. There was a plaque in front of him that read  _ Mark Lee, Head Boy.  _ On his left was Jeno, a laptop in front of him.

“Um, my phone was confiscated and I was told to come here to get it back?” Renjun felt awkward all of a sudden, with the entire student council now staring at him.

“Right,” Mark said brightly. “It will just be in that box over there.” He pointed to a clear plastic container sitting on a filing cabinet behind Jaemin.

“Thanks,” Renjun muttered and tried not to wince at the blinding smile Mark shot him.

“No problem!” He chirped. “Just don’t have it out during school hours again or that’s a thirty minute detention after school.”

How he could make such a depressing thought sound cheerful, Renjun didn’t know, but Mark did it anyhow. Mark continued the meeting, talking about something Renjun didn’t care enough about to pay attention to. He made his way around the desks to where the cabinet was, and began digging through the pile of phones to find his own.

He found it easily, it being the only one that pre-dated this millennium, and turned it on to see that he had over thirty unread messages and missed calls from his friends, as well as a couple from Kun about his starting shift. He turned to glower at Jaemin, only to find Jaemin already staring at him with an amused look on his face.

“Something wrong, Wei?” He whispered, the sound audible to no one but Renjun as the rest of the council debated something.

Renjun fixed him with the most irritated look he could manage, the same one that frightened teachers and terrified students who tried to step to him. Jaemin didn’t seem deterred; his grin only widened.

“You made me miss some important things, Na,” Renjun gritted out.

“Like what?” Mirth danced in Jaemin’s eyes. “An automated message that your scholarship bursary has successfully paid for your textbooks?”

Renjun’s grip tightened around his phone. “Watch it, Na,” he said.

“Or what?” Jaemin mocked.

Renjun opened his mouth to speak but he was cut off by Mark.

“Jaemin? What do you think?”

Jaemin turned back around to face Mark, but Renjun saw how his eyes flit down to the piece of paper Donghyuck had pushed across their shared desk to him. It was filled with a bunch of scribbles, one of them circled. Renjun had no clue what any of them meant, but apparently Jaemin did.

“I say it’s a good idea; we should encourage the student body to be more involved with current affairs and I think this is a good way to do it,” Jaemin said after only a moment of thought. “We should use the plot of land behind Cedar, there aren’t any trees there and most students will pass by there during the day. Jeno, Donghyuck, and I can ask the art department to design posters and we’ll get people from the A-Level politics classes to take on a party each and do pretend campaigns.”

Mark looked proud, and nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Jaemin. I think that’s an excellent idea. All those in favour?”

The whole council agreed, and Renjun watched Jaemin squeeze Donghyuck’s hand in a silent thanks.

He only just resisted the urge to gag, and made to leave before a hand wrapped itself around his wrist and stopped him.

“Don’t let me catch you with your phone again, Injun.”

Renjun didn’t bother with an actual reply, and just shot him a sarcastic smile before pulling himself out of Jaemin’s grip and ignoring the snickers that followed him as he walked out of the room.

  
  


“I can’t believe what I’ve come to,” Renjun muttered under his breath as he rummaged through the music cupboard. “Stupid fucking parents, stupid fucking England, stupid fucking instruments.”

He flinched when he knocked over a snare drum that landed with a spectacularly loud noise.

“You all right?” Yangyang called from his place in the opposite corner of the cupboard.

“Just dandy.”

In hindsight, it had been stupid of him to sign up to orchestra without actually having an instrument with which to do so. But that hadn’t occurred to him until today, the day of auditions. And now he and Yangyang were searching for a violin in the clutter of badly damaged instruments that was the school’s music cupboard.

“Found one!” Renjun heard Yangyang’s voice and sighed in relief.

They both stumbled out of the cupboard, and Renjun resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose at the violin Yangyang was holding. A Yamaha.

“Thanks,” he forced himself to say.

Yangyang also looked at it with a sort of appraisal, and even his smile dimmed slightly. “Yeah, it’s not great and I’m not sure how good the sound will be, but if you’re as good as you say, you’ll probably still make the cut.”

The way he said it made it sound more like a question, but Renjun made himself smile as gratefully as he could. “I’ll make it work. Thanks for finding it.”

Yangyang beamed again and handed the instrument to Renjun. Renjun tried not to recoil when he held it, tried not to long for his own Strad violin at home that had been passed down through generations of his famil. Tried not to picture it sitting in its case in his bedroom, unplayed and sad.

Yangyang picked up his oboe case from the floor, as well as a bow they had found earlier that needed re-hairing, which he handed to Renjun.

“Let’s go,” he said. And Renjun followed.

Auditions were being held in the small study room next to the orchestra practice room in Maple. There was a congregation of about two hundred students already, all packed into the room and tuning. It was a cacophony of notes and tunes and Yangyang and Renjun had to muddle their way through to find a free space at the back.

Renjun sat on the floor and began trying to tune his violin as best he could despite the noise around him that made it hard to concentrate. Yangyang was assembling his oboe beside him and Renjun had just moved on to tightening his bow strings when a shadow loomed over him and he looked up to see Jaemin accompanied by Jeno. Jeno had a violin tucked under his arm, but Jaemin’s hands were free.

“What? No Donghyuck?” Renjun turned his attention back to his violin. “I thought you guys travelled in packs. Like gazelles.”

Renjun didn’t have to look up to know Jaemin was rolling his eyes.

“Donghyuck’s at choir,” Jeno supplied. It was the first time Renjun had heard Jeno speak, and he was somewhat annoyed to find that he had an amicable voice.

“I didn’t actually care,” Renjun said and looked up just in time to see Jeno’s smile falter. And maybe that made him feel slightly bad, but another look at Jaemin reignited his anger enough to silence his qualms. “What did you want, Na?”

“I wanted to wish you luck, Yangyang,” Jeno said before Jaemin could open his mouth.

Yangyang looked up and grinned. “Thanks, Jeno. You too.”

Jeno’s eyes dipped into tiny crescents when he smiled and Renjun had to look away to stop his hatred from dying.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here, Na,” he said. “I doubt you came along to wish either of us luck.”

Jaemin smiled saccharinely at him. “You’re right. I tagged along to ask if that was really a Yamaha you’re holding. What? That all you could find in the school’s supply?”

Renjun didn’t reply to that, mostly because he didn’t have an answer other than  _ yes _ .

“Fuck off, Na,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be tuning your instrument or something? Don’t want to have you sounding as much like a strangled cat as you do when speaking during your audition.”

Jaemin bared his teeth. “I play piano, dipshit. You expect me to just carry that around with me?”

They held each other’s gazes for a long moment before Jeno cleared his throat. He was eyeing Renjun’s instrument with thinly-veiled alarm and Renjun was ready to jump on the defensive when Jeno said, “if you’d like, I’ve got a spare bow you can borrow?”

Renjun didn’t know if this was a trick, but Jaemin looked betrayed enough for him to say yes.

“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”

“No problem, I’ll be right back.”

They started to walk off, presumably to get the bow but Renjun could still hear them talking.

“Don’t look at me like that, Nana,” Jeno was whining, trying to hold onto Jaemin’s hand even as he kept snatching it out of Jeno’s hold. “You saw that bow; it was just so pitiful!” Renjun felt defensive over his bow even though he knew full well Jeno wasn’t wrong. “I’ll buy you coffee for the rest of the week. I’ll let you choose the film tonight? I’ll‒”

“It’s fine, Nono,” Renjun heard Jaemin say, and pat the top of Jeno’s head. Jeno’s shoulders slumped with obvious relief. “It’s your bow; you get to decide who to lend it to. It’s not like he’ll be better than you either way.”

Renjun bristled at that, and craned his ears to hear more, but their voices were lost to the crowd. But he did see Jeno sling an arm around Jaemin’s waist as they walked, so he doubted it had caused much of a rift in their friendship.

“Told you Jeno was nice,” Yangyang said from beside him, and Renjun turned to look at him.

“Yeah,” Renjun conceded, “he is. But why the hell does he hang around with Jaemin Na then? They’re like polar opposites.”

Yangyang shrugged. “Loyalty’s a powerful thing, I guess. Besides, they’re actually like scarily similar in some aspects. You’ll see.”

Renjun didn’t know about that; he could barely stand one Jaemin, let alone two, so he just hummed a non-committal noise. He focused back on his violin. He stretched his fingers, clicked each of them one by one. This was violin, and no matter how shitty the make was, this was what he’d been doing since day one.

He’d show them what he could do. Even with a fucking Yamaha.

  
  


“Excuse me? Excuse me!” Renjun winced at the shrill nature of the patron’s voice, but forced a smile when he turned around and made his way to their table.

“Yes? Is something the matter?”

“This isn’t what I ordered.”

Renjun looked at it.

“You ordered the  _ chao mian _ ? Did you not?”

“Yes,” she said. “And you gave me noodles.”

Renjun felt a vein threaten to burst in his temple. “Because that’s what you ordered.”

“No, I ordered the  _ chou men _ .” She butchered the pronunciation and Renjun grimaced.

“Which is what is currently on your plate in front of you.”

“No, it’s not. And I do not appreciate your tone.”

“Well, I don’t appreciate you trying to tell me you speak my native language better than I do.”

“I want to speak to your manager.”

“Sure. You want to speak to him in Chinese considering you’re apparently fluent?”

Renjun wanted to continue, to lay into this stupid woman and her poor linguistic skills, but then a firm hand was laid on his shoulder and he looked up to see Kun, his smile strained.

“Injun,” he said, “why don’t you take your break? I’ll take care of our customer here.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Renjun said, and made his way through the restaurant into the kitchen.

His shift had been, to put it lightly, an absolute nightmare. What with rude customers and complicated orders and balancing plates atop of his arms. He stalked through the heat of the kitchen and out the back exit. The coldness of the night hit him square in the chest, but he revelled in the cool air against his face and willed his irritation down.

The night in town, much like the day, was quiet. There was no traffic in the streets and no hoards of drunk people barrelling up and down. The silence outside was welcome after the din of the restaurant, even if the absence of  _ anything _ made him yearn for Shanghai.

He didn’t know how much later it was that the door opened again and Kun stepped out, looking disappointed.

“Injun, this is the fourth customer tonight.”

Renjun hung his head. “I know,” he said, and let his shame seep into his words to make his regret obvious. “I’m really sorry it was just she was trying to tell I was wrong when  _ she _ was wrong and that really‒”

“Injun,” Kun cut him off, “I get it. I really do. The whole customer interaction thing is one of the reasons I usually just stay and cook in the kitchen. But the customer is always right. And if they’re being ignorant and stupid, you just play along with it and pretend they’re right. Think of the money they’ll be paying you ‒ that’s what gets me through, mostly.”

Renjun felt himself smile at that. “I’ll try.”

“Good.” Kun smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “You have another ten minutes to cool off then I want you back in there and giving it your all. You’re doing great for your first day.”

“Thanks, Kun. Really.”

Kun shook his head. “You’ll get the hang of it soon, Injun. I promise.” And then he went back inside.

Renjun wasn’t sure if he’d ever get the ‘hang’ of serving other people ‒ at least he hoped he wouldn’t. He took a deep breath. The air was cold when it settled in his lungs. Ten minutes. He breathed out, and tried to pretend the streets were busy with the thrum of city life. He tried to pretend he was home.

  
  


“You’re wrong,” said Jaemin’s nasally voice.

“I’m not,” Renjun shot back.

Donghyuck settled back in his chair as though he were watching a show.

Jaemin scoffed. “You’re delusional.”

“Boys,” Mr Williams interjected, “if we could keep on task‒”

The teacher faltered when Jaemin shot him a derisive look.

“They are cakes!” Renjun said. “It’s literally right there in the name.”

“You have clearly never had one, because they are obviously biscuits.”

“Then how do you explain the name, Mr Confectionary Expert?”

“Misnomer,” Jaemin said easily, and Renjun would have believed he were nonchalant if not for how his eye was twitching.

“Weak,” Renjun hissed.

“Listen here, Wei‒”

“No.  _ You _ listen, Na‒”

The bell rang. And Renjun could hear the collective breath of relief the rest of the class let out, besides Donghyuck, who looked as though his favourite toy had been taken from him.

Jaemin stood up, stuffing his things into his bags and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’m done arguing about this with you. You’re wrong.”

Renjun watched as he left, before he gathered his own things up and left the room. When he arrived at his physics classroom, Yangyang was already there, sat at their desk.

Renjun dropped his bag onto the desk dramatically, and sat down with a huff.

Yangyang eyed him, amused. “Jaemin?” 

“Don’t even say his name,” Renjun bit out.

Yangyang held his hands up. “You got it. Do I even want to know what it was about this time?”

Renjun shook his head. “You’ll just call it stupid.”

“I mean, probably.” Yangyang grinned. He leaned closer to Renjun. “Was it stupid?”

Luckily, Renjun was spared any further teasing by their teacher walking in, and gladly turned his attention to motion-time graphs, pushing any and all thoughts of Jaemin Na from his mind.

  
  


They were walking into the common room when Yangyang let out a strangled noise of excitement and Renjun startled.

Yangyang was pointing at the notice board again. “They’ve put up the orchestra list!”

“Already? It’s been like three days,” Renjun mused, letting Yangyang drag him over to the board.

Yangyang shrugged. “They work quickly.”

Yangyang used his finger to trace down to the woodwind section and yelped happily when he saw his own name printed there.

“Congrats,” Renjun said, searching for his own name.

“Injun!” Yangyang said. “You made first violinist.”

He pointed to the place of the sheet where it was written, and Renjun realised with a start that he’d been looking for the wrong name. But there it was.  _ First Violinist: Injun Wei. _

“Told you I was the best,” he said, but it came out breathy as pride filled his chest.

He was about to say something else, but then someone shouldered past him. He didn’t have to look to know it was Jaemin. Jaemin continued past him with his head held high, despite Renjun’s shout of annoyance.

Renjun tutted. “Arsehole.”

“You know,” Yangyang said, in a tone Renjun was beginning to discover was distinctly dangerous, “if you wanted to stick it to Jaemin, the lacrosse team is kind of his pride and joy.”

“I don’t do sports.”

Yangyang snorted. “I can tell.”

Renjun frowned at that, offended.

“But he if he got this pissed you’re in orchestra, imagine how annoyed he’d be if you were on his beloved sports team.”

Renjun nodded slowly, warming to the idea.

“You also know,” Yangyang continued, sly smile spreading across his lips, “that you still have time to sign up for the team before try-outs tomorrow.”

A grin split Renjun’s face. “Where do I sign?”

  
  


Renjun gripped his lacrosse stick with both hands, and ground the heels of his feet into the dirt. 

The sports field was wet with afternoon rain, and the cold bit at his knuckles where they were wrapped around his stick.

He hadn’t had any studs for try-outs, so he’d had to hunt around lost and found for a pair of football boots. They were too big for him, so he’d worn three pairs of socks to try and make up for it. He’d thought it was stupid earlier, but now he was just grateful for the protection from the cold.

Yangyang was somewhere further up the field, actually participating in the game, while Renjun himself cowered in goal.

He, admittedly rather stupidly, hadn’t actually known what lacrosse was until he’d arrived on the field, too blinded by his hatred for Jaemin to think through his own decisions.

And now, here he was. Standing in the freezing cold and watching Jaemin score yet another goal for his team. They’d done drills earlier, and Renjun had dropped the ball far more often than he’d actually been able to throw it. And on the few occasions he had managed to project it through the air, it had never gone in the direction he’d intended it to.

So they’d stuck him as far away from the action as they possibly could have done and told him to block the ball with his body if it ever came near him. It hadn’t. Which Renjun was equal parts miffed and happy about.

The ball hadn’t come unto his half for almost the entirety of the game, which he supposed was better than having lacrosse balls pelted at his face constantly.

The whistle blew. The coach stepped onto the field from where she’d been refereeing from the sidelines.

“It’s a little unbalanced so I’m switching up the teams,” she shouted. “Jaemin, Jeno, Chenle swap with Hyunjin, Yukhei, and Yangyang.”

Renjun watched as Jaemin and Jeno each did an overly complex handshake with Donghyuck before they tore their blue bibs off and handed them to Yangyang and Hyunjin respectively. Chenle did the same, tossing his bib to Yukhei, who caught it easily. Yukhei struggled to squeeze into it, but seemed undeterred as he ran to join his new teammates.

“I won’t go easy on you two,” Renjun heard Donghyuck call out to his two friends.

Jaemin grinned. “You’re going down, Hyuckie.”

After that, it was a much fairer game. With Jaemin and Jeno now both on the opposing team, Renjun had to spend a good amount of his time dodging balls thrown at his with speeds to rival a jet engine.

“Wei!” He heard Donghyuck shout from up the pitch. “Why the hell are you running away? You’re meant to  _ stop  _ the balls from going in the goal, not dive out of the way and leave them with a free shot!” His voice was shrill, and he was waving his lacrosse stick above his head with both hands.

“Lay off it, Hyuck,” Jaemin said through laughter. “It’s not like he would be able to do much even if he weren’t so scared.”

Renjun growled around his gum shield, and then took it out so he could yell, “I could block any of your shots if I wanted to, Na.”

“I’d like to see you try, Wei,” Jaemin called back.

Renjun slipped his gum shield back into his mouth and grit his teeth around it.

The game started back up again, with Donghyuck carrying it up the pitch and passing it over to someone else on their team before Jeno could intercept him. Renjun saw him flash Jeno a sweet smile as he did so, and he watched as Jeno rolled his eyes in fond exasperation before he moved after the ball.

Renjun heard Yangyang call for the ball, and traced its trajectory through the air. It reached the highest point of its parabola and, just before it was about to fall neatly into the basket of Yangyang’s stick, it was snatched out of the air, intercepted by Jaemin.

Jaemin had a devilish grin on his face as he thundered down the pitch, span around Hyunjin, and tossed the ball to Jeno, who had been standing so far left on the wings that even Renjun hadn’t noticed him. Now though, he squared his shoulders and gave Jeno his full attention as he bounded towards Renjun’s goal.

He splayed his fingers out on the handle of his lacrosse stick and held it lengthways in front of him.

Jeno was about three or so metres away when his ankle twisted in the dirt and Renjun had a sinking realisation what he was about to do.

In less than a second, the ball was in Jaemin’s possession, and Renjun had to fling himself to his other side to brace himself for Jaemin’s attack, despite the disorientation he felt from changing directions so quickly.

Jaemin’s face was focused, impossibly so. His eyebrows were furrowed together over eyes that seemed almost black with determination in the grey light of an English afternoon. He moved towards Renjun with frightening speed, and Renjun’s defenders were too far away to be of any use.

Jaemin’s eyes met Renjun’s for only split-second, and there was something gracefully animalistic about it that made Renjun think  _ oh, this is why he’s captain. _

Jaemin dug his toes into the earth, and catapulted the ball from his stick. It flew through the air and Renjun rooted himself into the ground, determined to not be a coward, to not run away.

But the ball travelled inexplicably quickly through the air, and Renjun didn’t have time to raise his stick or his hand or anything before it had hurtled straight into his face.

It made a sickening noise and he dropped to his knees with a  _ thud _ . He opened his mouth and spit out his gum shield.

“Oh my God!” That was Yangyang. Renjun could just about make out his voice over the ringing in his ears.

There was more shouting, and then there was a hand at his back, stroking the plane of it gently.

“Shit, are you okay?” Said a voice Renjun only distantly registered as Jaemin’s.

“Ow,” Renjun said intelligently.

“Fuck, Injun, I’m so‒”

“Alright, everyone out the way. Back up. Give the boy some space.”

The hand on his back disappeared, and Renjun, in his confused and most likely concussed state, found himself mourning its absence.

Then there were arms lifting him onto his feet, and the world was coming back into a blur of bright colours and foggy shapes Renjun couldn’t distinguish. He blinked a few times, willing his vision to clear up. And it did, but his eyes were still wet with tears he didn’t remember crying.

The lacrosse coach was next to him, supporting him as he swayed dangerously on his feet. Vaguely, he could make out Yangyang yelling at Jaemin. He tried to focus on it, and saw that Jaemin was ignoring Yangyang, staring at Renjun with an expression closer to bewildered than apologetic.

“Liu,” their coach barked, “take Wei to the infirmary. Na,” Renjun watched as Jaemin pulled himself from his stupor and snapped to attention, “my office.”

Renjun let himself be handed over to Yangyang and willed his feet to carry him off the field. He leant on Yangyang mostly, his steps blocky, and ignored Yangyang’s mutterings in his ear cursing Jaemin out in favour of letting his eyes slip closed and trusting Yangyang to take him where he needed to go.

  
  


“What the fuck Re‒ Injun?!” Kunhang’s voice came out crackly from his phone’s speaker.

Renjun laughed a little, and turned his head to the left and then to the right do Kunhang and Dejun could fully appreciate the massive bump on his forehead.

“Christ, that is ugly,” Dejun said, a sort of horror-induced awe in his eyes as he touched his own forehead as though a similar bump might appear.

“Isn’t it?” Yangyang squashed himself into Renjun’s tiny bed next to Renjun so that they could both fit into frame. “Look at him. Look at how Jaemin Na has defiled his face.”

Renjun choked on air. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Jaemin Na?” Dejun raised a delicate eyebrow and fixed Renjun with an insinuating look as best he could through the phone screen.

“Yes Jaemin Na,” Renjun said, and let his bangs fall back over his forehead to cover the bump, sending Dejun a look he knew his friend would understand meant  _ I’ll tell you later. _

“That’s right,” Kunhang said sagely, “hide your hideous deformity.”

Renjun gave him the finger and was about to say something along the lines of  _ at least my entire face isn’t a hideous deformity _ but Yangyang spoke over him.

“He got out of it as well, by saying it was an accident.”

“It  _ was  _ an accident,” Renjun sighed. It wasn't the first time they were having this argument

“Jaemin is a good enough player to aim his strikes. You cannot convince me he didn’t aim for your head.”

“He what?” Kunhang interjected, and Renjun could feel his friend’s anger despite the shitty connection.

“He thought I would move out of the way.” Renjun wasn’t entirely sure why he was defending Jaemin Na of all people, but he found that he was. “And he’s a dick but you can’t blame him for just trying to win the game.”

“I definitely can,” Kunhang said, and Yangyang nodded his head in fervent agreement.

“Does it hurt?” Dejun said.

“Not too much anymore,” Renjun said truthfully. “Just like a dull throb of pain.”

Kunhang winced. “That doesn’t sound great.”

“It’s not,” Renjun admitted. “But I’ll be fine soon.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Sorry guys that’s lights out,” Renjun said.

“This early?”

Renjun shrugged. “England’s a shitty place.”

“Talk tomorrow?”

Renjun grinned. “Of course. Love you both.”

His friends chorused their goodbyes, and Renjun ended the video call. Yangyang stayed sitting next to him in his bed for a few moments, as a teacher poked his head in to tell them to go to sleep. He waited a few moments before heaving himself up and to the other side of the room where he promptly collapsed in his own bed.

“Are you really okay, Injunnie?” Yangyang’s voice was quiet in the dark. “I could go get you some ice or‒”

“I’m really fine,” Renjun said, and he hoped Yangyang could hear the smile in his voice where he couldn’t see it on his face. “Let’s go to sleep.”

It was quiet for a few moments, and Renjun stretched to find a position to sleep in that didn’t hurt his head.

“You want to do something tomorrow? It’s Saturday.”

“I can’t,” Renjun said apologetically. “I’ve got my detention.”

“Oh, right.”

“But it’s my last one!” Renjun tried to sound optimistic, though that wasn’t exactly his forte. “After this week I’ll be free.”

Yangyang snorted. “Night, Injun.”

Renjun smiled, and settled into a comfortable position. 

“Night, Yangyang.”

  
  


“Reprographics, reprographics, reprographics,” Renjun muttered under his breath, searching for said sign.

His detention this week, it turned out, was just running errands for Mr Williams. So now he was trying to track down the reprographics office ‒ whatever that was ‒ to pick up some printing. Problem was, Mr Williamshad a very vague concept of what ‘directions’ meant, and got distracted very easily. So all Renjun had to go was that it was in ‘that building by the piece of grass’.

So here he was, roaming through the hallways of Willow‒ the third building by a piece of grass he’d tried (because the majority of buildings in the school were surrounded by pieces of grass) ‒ trying to search for a place he wasn’t entirely certain actually existed.

He couldn’t even ask for help, because the school became practically deserted on the weekend as those who lived close enough went home and everyone else filed down to the town or into the city so as not to remain trapped in the school.

Hearing voices distracted him, because they were the only ones he’d heard all day that weren’t Mr Williams’. What surprised him even more, was that he recognised them.

He walked ‒ keeping his steps light ‒ down the hall until he came to the student council room, door slightly ajar. Enough for him to see Jaemin and Donghyuck inside. Jaemin was perched on a desk, a thin book bent backwards in his hands, and Donghyuck stood in the centre of the room, pacing around with purpose.

Renjun frowned, wondering why the two of them weren’t off flaunting their wealth or other such activities Renjun himself had enjoyed when he’d still had money.

He looked curiously at Jaemin for a moment, and tried to ignore the way his long fingers were wrapped around the spine of the book, and how his hair was unstyled for the first time since Renjun had met him, falling over his forehead in fluffy strands of light brown. He was in casual clothes as well, looking wholly like he had just rolled out of bed with a grey hoodie and Adidas tracksuit bottoms. Renjun turned his attention to Donghyuck.

“ _ Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother, _ ” Donghyuck was saying, a deep emotion to his voice Renjun couldn’t name but could feel as if it were his own. He was, Renjun admitted (albeit bitterly) a good actor. “ _ That he might not _ …  _ might not _ … Fuck. What is it?”

Donghyuck’s head snapped up, and Renjun could tell without seeing his face that he was annoyed.

“ _ That he might not beteem the winds of heaven _ ,” Jaemin read out, with none of the emotional proficiency Donghyuck had.

“ _ Beteem _ ? That’s not a fucking word.”

“Say that to Shakespeare’s face, why don’t you?”

“If I could, I would.” Donghyuck threw his head back and groaned, going to sit beside Jaemin on his desk. Renjun pushed himself closer into the wall to avoid being seen. “Why can we never do normal plays?”

Jaemin combed his fingers through Donghyuck’s hair. “Because Moon is a sucker for tradition. And since when did the great Donghyuck Lee start to get nervous over auditions?  _ The _ Donghyuck Lee who has been starring in productions since nursery? Who learnt to tap dance before he learnt to walk?” Renjun could see Jaemin’s own grin widen as Donghyuck’s began to grow. 

“I never said I was nervous,” Donghyuck said, not meeting Jaemin’s eyes.

“Ah, but you see, while it’s normal for me to run lines with you, it is not normal for you to start cussing out the playwright. You love Shakespeare, Duckie! You’re usually all like ‘it is an honour to be able to bring these words to life in my own way’,” Jaemin said in what Renjun guessed was supposed to be an imitation of Donghyuck’s voice.

“Shut up,” Donghyuck said, but it was weak with laughter. “I do not sound like that.”

“You do.” A beat passed. “Are you going to tell me what’s got you all nervous? Since when did you start questioning if you would get the lead?”

When Donghyuck spoke next, it was so quietly Renjun had to strain his ears to hear it. “Since Mark decided he wanted to help direct.”

“Ah,” Jaemin let out a noise of understanding. “Right.” He pat Donghyuck’s head once more and slipped off the desk, ignoring when Donghyuck whined.

He walked to the middle of the room and turned so he was facing away from Renjun, gesturing for Donghyuck to follow him. “Let’s get you your role.”

Donghyuck pushed himself to stand up and join Jaemin. “Thanks, Nana. I know you don’t like him‒”

Jaemin shushed him, and then laughed at Donghyuck’s affronted look. “It’s not even that,” he said. “I’ve known him too long to not like him.”

“I know,” Donghyuck said, sounding wholly like he did when Renjun certainly didn’t. “But also, before we start, where’s Jeno at?”

Jaemin’s shoulders slumped down.

Donghyuck winced. “Still sad?”

Jaemin nodded sadly. “It’s the first time he hasn’t gotten first violinist since Doyoung left. He told me he wanted to practise when I invited him to join us.” Jaemin scoffed. “Like he needs to practise any more. I swear that Injun kid was put here to ruin everything.”

Renjun had half a mind to butt in indignantly at that, but decided against it, and chose to just seeth in secret.

Jaemin sighed. “Well who cares? Let’s get you audition-ready and then I’ll make soy-sauce rice for Jeno and we’ll all watch a movie or something. Fuck that Injun kid.”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck agreed, and the indignation in Renjun’s chest grew. “Forget him.”

Renjun took that as his cue to leave, and continued his search for the reprographics office with a weird feeling crawling its way into his gut.

  
  


Summoner’s decathlon team try-outs were being held in an empty English classroom. There weren’t too many people when Renjun arrived with Yangyang, and they sat down at one of the empty tables.

Ten or so minutes later, Jeno stood at the front of the classroom, a clipboard resting on his arm and genial smile on his face.

“Okay, Summoners, are we ready to win this year?” He asked with too much excitement.

A sort of lazy consensus of agreement filtered through the room. Renjun was impressed when Jeno’s smile didn’t falter.

“Okay,” he said, “for try-outs we’ll be splitting into teams of two and having mini-decathlons against other pairs and, from that, I’ll decide on the team. Please get into pairs.”

Renjun and Yangyang looked at each other, shrugged, and didn’t move. The rest of the room split up and Jeno instructed the first two pairs to go to the front so he could start asking them questions.

They were on their fourth or fifth question when the door opened again, and Jaemin sauntered into the room, hands in his pockets, hair styled without a strand out of place, and perfectly haughty expression on his face. Renjun stared at him for a moment, trying to reconcile this Jaemin with the one he had seen in the student council room last Saturday and then abruptly stopped trying when Jaemin caught him looking and smirked at him.

“Jaem?” Jeno said, eyes widening in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Just scoping out the competition,” Jaemin said, sliding into the seat beside Jeno.

Jeno’s face split into a smile. “Why? Scared?” He nudged Jaemin in the ribs.

Renjun half-expected Jaemin to grow insulted at Jeno’s mocking, and was taken aback when Jaemin laughed, nudging Jeno back.

“No harm in getting ahead,” he said, winking at Jeno, and smiling properly when Jeno laughed.

Jaemin stayed for the rest of the try-outs, looking wholly unimpressed with every single person. He barely even blinked when Renjun and Yangyang annihilated their opponents, and the only times he made any noise were when he snorted at someone’s answer when they were wrong, and when he leaned over to Jeno to whisper no doubt snarky comments in his ear. Jeno would usually bat him away, but looked like he was suppressing laughter.

It went pretty quickly though, and the questions were easier than Renjun had expected, though Yangyang warned him that the actual ones were always much more difficult.

An hour or so later, Jeno clapped his hands together and announced that they were finished.

“I’ve already decided on the line-up, so I’ll just tell you now.” He stood up. “Our team for the inter-house academic decathlon team this year will be Yangyang Liu, Injun Wei,” Renjun and Yangyang high-fived each other, and Renjun sent a particularly smug look to Jaemin, “Felix Lee, Chan Bang, and myself. Thank you to everyone for trying out this year, and I hope to see you supporting us and trying again next year!”

Jeno’s voice was so cheerful it made even rejection sound exciting.

“I’d like to speak to our team briefly about practice but the rest of you are free to leave. Thanks again!”

Renjun watched the others leave, which Renjun hoped would include Jaemin but apparently it didn’t.

“Okay, first of all,” Jeno said when everyone else had left, “congratulations! You all did really well and I think we have a good chance of taking the trophy this year.”

Renjun expected Jaemin to say something then, and was surprised when he didn’t, and just let Jeno continue with his speech.

“I want us to meet every Wednesday after school and Monday and Friday lunchtimes to practise. Is that good for everyone?” There was a general nod of agreement. “If you can’t make it one day, please tell me in advance. Okay, that’s it for today‒”

“Jen,” Jaemin said, now sitting up slightly in his chair.

“Hmm?” Jeno turned to look at him.

There was something devious to Jaemin’s smile when he said, “what do you think about a little friendly competition? Knights versus Summoners: practice decathlon?”

Jeno seemed to think it over for a moment, but the smile on his face told Renjun he’d already decided.

“And what do we get when we win?”

Jaemin grinned, brighter than Renjun had seen him do so before, and stood up to match Jeno’s height.

“ _ If _ the Summoners somehow manage to scrape a win, my team and I will publicly announce our defeat, and we will clean all of your team’s rooms. Of course, the opposite will happen when you lose.”

Jeno tapped his finger against his chin in pretend thought. “When?”

“Two weeks Wednesday.”

“Deal.”

The two of them shook hands, and Yangyang tapped Renjun’s arm excitedly. “Our room is a mess,” he whispered, though Renjun was sure it was loud enough for everyone to hear, “we need that win.”

Renjun grimaced, but nodded for his friend’s sake anyway.

Jaemin met his eyes very briefly, but Renjun only needed that split-second to recognise the challenge that lay there. He smiled back.

_ You’re on. _

  
  


Orchestra rehearsal was tedious. The piece was overplayed and the brass section was so horribly off-tempo that Renjun wanted to melt all of their instruments down.

Judging by the slightly pained undertone to Jeno’s otherwise happy smile, Renjun assumed his deskie felt more or less the same.

He had felt a little bad at first, Donghyuck and Jaemin’s conversation ringing at the back of his head, but Jeno had shown no sign of discomfort at Renjun being first, and had even offered Renjun his bow again, so Renjun’s mild guilt had evaporated quickly.

Jaemin, sitting at the piano and perfectly in Renjun’s line of sight, was more than visibly ticked off. His leg was shaking under the keyboard and he rolled his eyes every time someone played a note slightly off, which Renjun found himself doing as well, subconsciously.

Renjun and Jeno, while there was no animosity between them, were still overwhelmingly awkward. Neither of them looked in the other’s direction if they could help it, and there was more than one awkward moment of eye contact before they would both look determinedly away.

Renjun tapped his foot to the beat of the music, and Jeno bopped his head along and each of them hoped it would alleviate some of the tension between them, somehow. It didn’t.

Renjun was beyond grateful when the conductor ‒ Mr Benson ‒ finally let them go.

Renjun made to give the bow back to Jeno, only for Jeno to shake his head.

“It’s fine,” he said, “you can keep it. I can just buy another one.”

Renjun must have looked affronted at that, because Jeno’s eyes widened and he immediately grappled for something to say. “Not that I’m saying you can’t afford one ‒ I’m sure you can. Not that there would be anything wrong with not being able to afford one, it’s just‒”

“It’s fine, Jeno,” Renjun said, more amused than offended. “Thanks.”

And, even if Renjun had been upset, Jeno’s smile would probably have been enough to quell it.

“You good to go, Jen?”

Renjun turned his head to see Jaemin stood behind him, hands in his pockets, sheet music tucked under his arm, and looking wholly bored.

“Oh, yeah. One sec,” Jeno said, and began packing his violin away.

Jaemin fixed his attention on Renjun. “How’s your head, Wei?” He said it in such a way that Renjun couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely concerned or just rubbing salt into the wound of the egg-shaped bump on Renjun’s forehead.

He decided it was safer to assume it was the latter.

“Fine,” he bit out. “No thanks to you.”

Jaemin opened his mouth but seemed to think better of it, and closed it again, opting instead to just roll his eyes and look away. Jaemin hummed under his breath to a song Renjun liked while he waited. Renjun admonished himself for wishing it would last longer when Jeno stood up and Jaemin stopped.

“Bye, Injun,” Jeno said, before walking out of the room with Jaemin, the pair of them talking about something.

“Fuck me, those trumpets need to learn how to count,” Yangyang’s voice said from beside him.

Renjun hummed in agreement, focusing his attention on putting his own violin back in a case they’d salvaged from the charity shop in town.

He slung it over the shoulder, and left the orchestra room with Yangyang still complaining about the brass section, and Renjun chiming in where he could.

There was a new sheet of paper pinned to the noticeboard when they arrived in the common room, and Renjun went over to look at it with Yangyang.

_ Lacrosse Team: positions to be decided by captain and coach on Friday _ , it read, and Renjun scanned the list for his own name, and the happiness he felt at seeing it stemmed more from the fact that his injury hadn’t been in vain than from love of the sport.

Yangyang let out an excited squeal, and punched Renjun’s arm in an action he guessed was supposed to hype him up, but just made his arm ache.

“We made it!” Yangyang said, bouncing up and down. Renjun smiled despite himself. “All of us!”

“We did,” Renjun agreed. “Do you think Coach only let me onto the team because she felt sorry for me?”

Yangyang stopped bouncing to nod sheepishly.

Renjun sighed theatrically. “I'll take it.”

  
  


“Wei,” a voice hissed, breaking through the silence of the classroom. “Wei. Injun!”

Renjun looked up from his work, locating where the voice was coming from. Jaemin stared back at him, mirth bright in his eyes.

“Race you number fourteen?”

Renjun nodded, and the both of them turned back to their textbooks instantaneously.

Renjun scanned over the question. It was about vectors, and Renjun began scrawling down a diagram, his page messy with squiggles of arrows and numbers and letters. It may have looked chaotic, but maths was as natural to him as breathing, and he found his answers by digging them out of lines of working he created himself.

“Finished,” he whispered to Jaemin, making no effort to disguise the gleeful triumph he felt.

Jaemin glowered at him, and dropped his pen onto his page with annoyance clear in his eyes. There was something else there ‒ disbelief, humiliation ‒ whatever it was, Renjun revelled in it.

The bell rang. Renjun reluctantly turned his attention away from Jaemin, to start putting his stuff away.

“Okay class, hand in your questions for chapter six, and then you can go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Renjun’s stomach dropped. Homework? Fuck.

He watched as people stacked their homework in a pile on top of Jones’ desk, and his stomach sunk further with the realisation that he definitely had not done it.

It was times like this when, although she was largely overbearing and annoying, he missed his assistant. He missed how she never let him forget an assignment or a deadline and kept him just the right side of good student, enough so to not flunk out.

Now, his life was disorganised as he had to remember things himself and actually get things done without being able to rely on his name to pull him out of tricky situations.

He glowered as he thought of his father, and pulled himself out of his seat to face his fate. He could practically hear his assistant laughing hysterically at how far he’d fallen without her.

He lugged his bag to the front and willed himself to take a breath before he spoke.

“Sir, I didn’t do the homework because I forgot.”

Jones looked wholly unimpressed. “And?”

Renjun was confused. “And… I’m sorry?”

“Lead with that next time,” Jones said dryly. “Detention. One hour. After school today.”

“An hour?!” Renjun reminded himself to be civil, and forced himself to be quieter. “But, sir, I have lacrosse practice.”

Jones gave him a look. “I am sure they will survive without you.”

“But we’re getting assigned our positions today.”

“Another word out of you and I’ll make sure you don’t play lacrosse again for the rest of your school career.”

Renjun had to bite his tongue to stop himself from hurtling the retort he was itching to say. He forced himself to nod, and Jones seemed placated even though the movement was jerky.

“Thanks, sir,” Renjun said, entirely unthankful, and traipsed out of the classroom.

  
  


“Injun! Where the hell were you? I lost you after maths,” Yangyang said the moment Renjun opened the door to their shared room.

Renjun dropped his bag on his bed, and then himself. He groaned.

“Fucking Jones,” he said. “Gave me a det because I didn’t do the homework.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I forgot, okay? I was pissed and it just slipped my mind.”

He heard Yangyang sigh. “Okay, well, they assigned positions and Jaemin kind of leapt at the chance to make you a sub and coach couldn’t really go against it when you weren’t there.”

Renjun let out a noise of frustration. “Of course he did. Let’s be honest though, he would’ve done that even if I had been there. I’m not exactly a lacrosse prodigy, am I? It’s probably better that I missed it. At least this way they didn’t have to tell me to my face.”

“Why didn’t you do the homework?”

Renjun stumbled over his words, looking for an excuse that wasn’t  _ I can’t function without a personal assistant _ .

“Injun,” Yangyang’s voice was serious, “you can tell me, you know. I won’t judge.”

Renjun braced himself, taking a deep breath and waiting for hie lie to come crashing down around him.

“Listen‒”

“I know you have a job.”

Renjun snapped his mouth shut.

“I know a lot of the kids around here are snobs about this kind of stuff, but I promise I won’t look down on you because of it. And I promise I won’t tell anyone either.”

The smile Yangyang shot him was almost frightening in its sincerity, and Renjun felt himself grow numb with a weird mix of relief, guilt, and fondness.

“Thanks, Yangyang.”

Silence stretched between them before Yangyang broke it.

“Wanna play Mario Kart on Yukhei’s Switch?”

Renjun was grateful for the out it gave him. “Sure.”

  
  
  


The air was tense in the student council room, as Yangyang and Renjun worked together to pull a table to the side, joining it up with the one already there. Jeno and Donghyuck did the same, with a different table set about a metre or two away from theirs.

Anxiety and excitement thrummed together through the air, palpable for everyone present, and Renjun could feel it infect him, his foot tapping against the floor when he took his seat between Yangyang and Chan.

They’d roped Jungwoo ‒ a neutral member of the Physicians ‒ into officiating, and Yukhei along with a few others were spectating. It was more people than Renjun had been expecting to come out for what was just a practice decathlon, but the thought of it set his competitive spirit on fire.

Jaemin sat in the chair closest to theirs, the mirror reflection of Jeno’s that marked them both as team captains. On his team were Donghyuck, Mark, Chenle, and someone else Renjun didn’t know. Chenle was drumming his fingers against the desk, and making faces at someone in the crowd

Jaemin caught his eye, and smirked. Renjun looked away. He wouldn’t let Jaemin distract him.

“Okay,” Jungwoo’s soft, lilting voice caught his attention, “welcome to the first ever practice decathlon, a  _ friendly _ ,” he emphasised, giving Jaemin and Renjun pointed looks, “competition before the actual one to get everyone’s spirits fired up.”

“Summoners, are you ready?”

Jeno smiled, and it seemed angelic, but Renjun had grown to recognise the sharp edge beneath it after so many practice sessions with him. And, from the few weeks now that Renjun had known Jeno, Renjun knew that he was amiable and gentle in almost all that he did, but when he drilled the decathlon team or helped Jaemin run lacrosse training, there was something undeniably ruthless about him. And maybe Renjun was starting to understand just how he was best friends with someone like Jaemin Na.

“We’re ready,” Jeno said.

Jungwoo turned to Jaemin’s table. 

“Knights, are you ready?”

Jaemin looked at Jeno when he said, “we’re ready.”

“Our first topic is geography.”

Renjun heard Jaemin click his neck as if to say,  _ this one’s mine. _ Renjun let his fingers hover over his buzzer, and blinked once, slowly, to clear his mind. He was ready.

Jaemin looked wholly too confident when he buzzed in, Renjun’s fingers hitting his own buzzer just a second later. He slunk down in his chair, not craning to look at Jaemin like the rest of the room were doing. There was no need. They’d already lost.

“The Glass Menagerie,” Jaemin said easily.

The room waited with bated breath but Renjun just sighed. He hadn’t known the answer ‒ had tried to buzz in more out of reflex ‒ but he knew Jaemin well enough to know he was right.

“That is,” Jungwoo paused for dramatic effect, and Renjun had to bite his tongue to stop himself from telling Jungwoo to just get on with it, “correct! The Knights win!”

The Knights erupted into cheers, and the Summoners devolved into groans. Jaemin shook Jeno’s hand with a surprising amount of sportsmanship, before going to congratulate the rest of his team. Donghyuck clung onto Jaemin with his arms around his neck, laughing brightly, and Jaemin even seemed happy enough to give Mark a half-hug and word of praise. Jaemin ruffled Chenle’s hair, and Chenle grinned brightly. Renjun felt envy grow in his gut like a fungus.

Jeno turned to face them, and Renjun thought it was nice of him that he bothered to disguise his disappointment. 

“You all did really well, guys,” he said. “I know we didn’t win, but considering most of you haven’t done this before, it was really impressive. I hope you all use this defeat as motivation to work even harder for the real thing.”

There was truth to that, and Renjun felt the words settle in his gut. He looked over at Jaemin, at his cocky grin, and Renjun felt that same fire in his gut from earlier reignite, hotter than before.

There was about a month and a half before the actual competition, and Renjun could feel the desire to win stir in his bones.

He would win, he decided. He glared at Jaemin, who was still talking excitedly with his team. Jaemin met his eyes for a tiny moment, and smirked at the anger Renjun knew was evident on his face. He raised an eyebrow, and Renjun felt his blood boil. Jaemin turned away again but Renjun only felt his resolution grow stronger.

He would win the inter-house academic decathlon.

(“Jeno and Jaemin are roommates?” Renjun asked incredulously, folding socks in a drawer. “Then what was the point of the bet? They both get their room cleaned either way, no matter who won!”

“Yeah, but Jaemin gets a clean room without any of the effort of actually cleaning it,” Yangyang said, arranging the books on the bookshelf.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Just be glad we didn’t get Chenle’s room.” Yangyang shuddered, and Renjun couldn’t actually tell if it was fake or not. “That is a place of nightmares.”

Renjun opened his mouth but then decided he didn’t want to know, and shut it again. He turned his attention back to the socks.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/whatisanult)   
>  [cc](https://curiouscat.me/whatisanult)


	3. Chapter 3

The kitchen was hot and busy around him. The sounds of pots and pans clanging against each other, and the sizzle of food against oil filled the air around him, along with smells that reminded Renjun so strongly of home that it was hard for him to concentrate.

He frowned, moving his lips as he read, attempting to memorise the kings and queens of England, reciting them in his head, along with the dates they’d reigned.

He’d been next to useless in the history round of the practice decathlon, because ‒ besides one question on imperial China ‒ all of the questions had been about western history, about which Renjun had never been taught.

He checked his watch. Ten minutes left until his break was over and he was back on the clock.

He focused back, covering the list of monarchs on his page and attempting to say them to himself.  _ William, William, Henry, Stephen, Henry, William‒ _ no. That was wrong.

He let out a noise of frustration, rubbing the heel of his hands against his eyes. He shot a sheepish smile to Kun, who looked up from the vegetables he was chopping to send him an alarmed look.

His phone started to ring from where it was in his pocket, and he debated ignoring it, but decided against that when he saw who was calling. He figured he at least owed Dejun an explanation. He accepted the call and held his phone up to his ear.

“Sorry. Can’t talk right now. Studying,” he said before Dejun could get a word in.

The line was quiet for a moment, as though Dejun was processing what he’d said, but then there was raucous laughter.

“Since when did you study?” Dejun asked when he’d finally calmed down. Renjun tried to feel affronted by it, but couldn’t when it was such a fair assessment. “What is this school doing to you, Renjunie?” Dejun said in mock fear.

“Oh, shut up,” Renjun bit back. “What did you want?”

“Well, I wanted to talk to my best friend but I guess studying is more important than I am.”

“You’re right,” Renjun said, imagining Dejun’s offended face all the way in China. “It is.”

Dejun huffed out a laugh. “Your head getting any better?”

Renjun lifted a hand to feel over his forehead, the pain non-existent now.

“There’s still a little bump, but it’s going down,” he said.

Dejun hummed. “That’s good. Want me to call you back later when you’re not ‘studying’? Though I’m still not convinced that’s not a lie.”

Renjun rolled his eyes even though Dejun couldn’t see him.

“That would be great. You’ll still be up?”

“For you? Always.”

Renjun grinned. “Okay, talk later.”

“See you.”

Renjun hung up and turned back to the textbook he’d borrowed from the library.

“Injun,” Kun called over the din of the kitchen. “Break’s over.”

Renjun cursed under his breath, but still shot Kun a smile as best he could. “Got it. Thanks, Kun.”

He closed his textbook, and pushed it off to the far corner of the counter he’d been using as a makeshift desk. He made his way to the doors that led to the main dining area of the restaurant, and pushed them open, still muttering under his breath.

_ William, William, Henry, Stephen, Henry, Richard, John. _

  
  


The brass section were getting better. They still weren’t fantastic, and definitely not up to par with the rest of the orchestra, but they were getting better. From the look on Mr Benson’s face, he thought so too.

Rehearsal wasn’t quite so awful now, not now that he and Jeno actually had something in common to talk about: decathlon. And that made the hour-long sessions every Monday afternoon much more bearable.

“Okay, you can go,” Mr Benson said. “I just want to speak with Jaemin and Injun quickly.”

It took a lot of effort for Renjun not to groan at that, and, judging by the constipated look on Jaemin’s face, he felt the same way. Jeno gave Renjun a questioning look, and Renjun just shrugged in response.

They both packed their violins away, and Renjun got up to go stand next to Mr Benson, where Jaemin was already stood.

Jeno walked past them on his way out of the room. “I’ll wait outside, Nana,” he said, and Jaemin smiled in response before he schooled his expression into something neutral when he faced back to Mr Benson.

“As you two know, we have our annual Christmas concert coming up at the end of this term, and we always have the orchestra as the closing act.” Renjun hadn’t known that last part, and hoped the brass section would be able to get it together in time. “But it is tradition that we open the concert with a spotlight performance from the orchestra’s most talented members, whom this year I have decided are you two.”

Renjun felt pride swell in his chest, and then felt it diminish with the worry that he was missing something when Jaemin didn’t look happy, but rather irritated.

“Would you two be happy to do it?” Mr Benson asked, seemingly oblivious to Jaemin’s glower.

“Yes,” Jaemin said, much to Renjun’s surprise. “I’d love to do it, sir.”

“Me too,” Renjun said, and ignored when Jaemin glared at him.

“Great,” Benson said, “I trust in the both of you to pick an appropriate piece and rehearse it. Good luck, boys, I’m sure you’ll do great.”

And then he left, leaving Renjun alone with Jaemin, who was ‒ more and more so with each passing second ‒ loking like he wanted to murder Renjun. The moment Benson was out the door, let out a noise midway between a scoff and a bitter laugh.

“A duet?” He said, so quiet that Renjun could barely hear it. “A fucking duet. Taeyong got a solo and I get a fucking duet.”

_ Oh, _ Renjun thought.

He let Jaemin steam off for a few moments, tuning out so he didn’t have to hear Jaemin’s quiet complaints, until Jaemin breathed deeply in and out a few times and seemed to collect his composure again.

“You’re not messing this up for me, Wei,” he said.

Renjun clucked his tongue. “Tell that to yourself, Na.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes, but Renjun could see he was suppressing the urge to lash out and the thought made Renjun smile, as sadistic as it was.

“I’m choosing the piece,” Jaemin said.

“You can choose three and then I have the final decision,” Renjun said, glaring at him. “Or I will purposefully butcher whatever you pick.”

Jaemin bared his teeth at him. “Any requests?” He said mockingly.

“No Baroque.”

Jaemin gasped, a little too quickly for it to have been fake. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You don’t like Baroque? Your lack of taste is astounding.”

“No, I don’t like Baroque,” Renjun said. “Because I don’t like repetitive sequences of semi-quavers, notes that aren’t written out properly, and having to tune my violin wrong.”

“So you don’t like Baroque because of a lack of technique, laziness, and because you can’t handle appoggiaturas?”

Renjun crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever. Just don’t pick a Baroque piece. It wouldn’t exactly suit Christmas anyway.”

Jaemin breathed out a tad too forcefully. “Fine. No Baroque. When are you free to rehearse?”

“Pretty much everyday,” Renjun admitted. His shifts at the restaurant were flexible, and he didn’t really have many other commitments besides decathlon practice. “Tuesday after school?”

Jaemin shook his head. “I’ve got horse riding and then volunteering.”

“Wednesday lunch?”

“No, I’ve got badminton.”

“Thursday lunch?”

“Debate club.”

“Thursday after school.”

“School council and then I have archery after that.”

“Friday after school?”

“We both have lacrosse, idiot.”

Renjun felt the vein on his forehead threaten to burst. “Why don’t you tell me when you’re free?”

Jaemin brought his phone out of his pocket and began swiping through what Renjun assumed was his calendar.

He had the decency to look sheepish when he met Renjun’s eyes. “What do you think about practising either before school starts, or during the evening?”

Renjun hoped the annoyance he felt was obvious on his face.

“You’re seriously not free any other time?”

Jaemin shook his head, and Renjun grabbed Jaemin’s phone out of his hand.

“Watch that, Scholarship,” he said, “it’s expensive.”

Renjun ignored him, and scrutinised Jaemin’s phone. Each of the days were practically full, lists of clubs and commitments, and responsibilities covering every day of the week.

“When do you sleep?”

Jaemin laughed, and for the first time, it wasn’t malicious; it was like he was laughing at some private joke. But he didn’t answer, and just took his phone back.

“I have a spare couple of hours free every Sunday at eight o’clock, if you can make that.”

Renjun nodded, just grateful they had finally found something. “Sunday eight o’clock works.”

Jaemin smiled, and typed something into his phone. “Cool. I’ll see you then with your choices for the piece.” He was already walking out of the room. “See you Sunday, Wei.”

  
  


The bench was cold and wet and Renjun was in constant discomfort. He hadn’t touched his lacrosse stick since he’d lain it at his feet at the start of the game, but that was fine by him because, without it, he could ball his hands up in his sleeves to protect his fingers from the cold. The players actually playing couldn’t do that.

At least, that was what he told himself.

And maybe he shouldn’t have been so bitter about it, seeing as he was still having trouble following the game and figuring out the rules, but he couldn’t help it. He especially couldn’t help the way he was secretly rooting for the opposing team. He couldn’t help that because, every time Jaemin scored (which was, unfortunately, a lot) he would grin and whack his stick against his teammates’, which apparently did not include the substitutes on the bench.

Chaucer was leading by a lot, due in large part to Jaemin and his gaggle of depressingly good lacrosse playing friends. And Renjun hated them, but even he had to admit that watching them in action was something of an experience.

Amongst the three of them, they never spoke. There was some sort of strange telepathy that guided each of their movements, each one of their plays. How Jaemin would know where Jeno was without looking, or how Donghyuck would drive up the pitch, and fake a pass to Jaemin with such accuracy, and Jaemin would play the part of it perfectly.

They moved up the pitch, weaving in and out of teammates and opponents alike, each of them focused on nothing but the goal, not looking at each other.

Renjun felt himself lean forwards despite himself.

Renjun felt envy bitter in his chest as Jeno easily scored another goal, and Donghyuck and Jaemin tackled him in a celebratory hug.

The referee blew the whistle, and Renjun had to force himself to stand up and shake the hands of the other team, even though he could barely call himself a part of Chaucer. Jaemin exchanged a few words with the other team’s captain, and shook his hand amicably, clapping him on the back. Renjun scowled. Of course he’d treat the enemy better than his own team.

Jaemin led the three cheers for the other team, and then led them all back to the changing rooms. Renjun sat down on one of the benches and kicked his boots off, wiggling his toes around now that they were free, and peeled off his three pairs of wet socks, grimacing at the sensation.

“Great plays from you today, Wei,” Jaemin’s voice said, too close. He sat down next to Renjun on the bench, and Renjun scooted pointedly away. Jaemin laughed and started to unlace his boot.

Renjun ignored him, and got to work changing out of his kit. He couldn’t help but take a look at Jaemin. Jaemin’s kit was muddier than his, since he’d actually been playing and had made more than one dive for the ball throughout the game. He also had a yellow band around his upper arm, with a  _ C _ printed on it in black.

His hair was matted with sweat, sticking against his forehead, and Renjun was surprised Jaemin wasn’t frantically fixing it into its usual styled position. Instead, he ran a hand through it, pushing it up for a brief moment, parting the strands with his fingers, before it fell against his head once more.

Sweaty and dishevelled but still glowing from his win, Jaemin looked unfairly hot. Renjun looked away.

He changed quickly into his casual clothes, and sat down on the bench again to wait for Yangyang to get out of the shower. Jaemin was still sat next to him, now taking off his shin pads and arranging them neatly in his sports bag. Renjun watched absentmindedly, tracing the dexterous flexing of Jaemin’s fingers as he fiddled with the fastenings with practised ease. A pianist’s fingers.

“How long have you been playing?” Renjun asked before he could stop himself.

Jaemin looked up, looking as shocked that Renjun was talking to him as Renjun was.

“What? Lacrosse?”

Renjun kept his eyes fixed on how Jaemin was balling his socks up. “That and piano.”

“Um,” Jaemin thought for a moment. “Piano has kind of been forever. And lacrosse we used to play when we were kids but I only really picked it up properly in like year eight.” Jaemin seemed hesitant as to whether he should continue the conversation, and it was a refreshing look on him. “How about you? How long have you been playing violin? I’d ask about lacrosse, too, but I’m pretty sure the first time you even picked up a stick was try-outs.”

Renjun ignored that. “Same as you. Been a violinist for forever.”

Jaemin hummed, and went back to sorting through his things.

“You picked any pieces for the concert yet?”

“I was actually thinking about that.”

“As you should be.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes. “Do you want to go classical or Christmas?”

Renjun thought about that. “Either,” he said. “Surprise me.”

Jaemin nodded, and stood up. “I need to jump in the shower.”

“Try not to slip and fall,” Renjun said, overly sweetly. “I’d hate to have to take your place on the team if you broke your leg.”

Jaemin laughed. It sounded more similar to the one Renjun had heard on that Saturday in the student council room and the thought of it made his stomach swirl. He ignored it.

“You’re our last resort, Scholarship,” he said, matter of factly. “You’ll only play if the entire rest of the team slips and breaks their leg.”

Renjun grinned. “And what a shame that would be, Rich Kid.”

Jaemin shook his head, amused, but didn’t say anything else and walked off towards the showers after grabbing a towel out of his bag.

It was only a moment or so afterwards, when Renjun was sitting by himself in a near empty changing room that he realised he’d just had a conversation with Jaemin Na.

The thought of it made him retch. Maybe he was taking this punishment harder than he’d thought.

  
  


“But we didn’t sign up for archery,” Renjun moaned, but still let Yangyang drag him towards the sports hall.

Yangyang rolled his eyes theatrically. “Anyone in sixth form’s allowed to come shoot during their frees if they want.”

“But I don’t want.”

Yangyang let out a noise Renjun could only describe as that of a strangled cat.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “It’ll be fun! Have you ever even done archery before?”

And Renjun was reminded of all those lessons back home, when his parents had signed him and Sicheng up to as many classes as they could so they wouldn’t have to look after their children themselves. Of course, they’d soon given up on even that.

Archery had been one of those. A hobby his parents had tried to instill to get them out of the house. Sicheng had always been better than Renjun.

Bitterness flooded his mind, and he tried to think past it, but he couldn’t quite contain the negativity when he spoke.

“Once. It wasn’t great.” Only half a lie. That would have to do.

“Then this will change your mind, I promise.”

Renjun didn’t believe that, but he gave up. Something told him he wasn’t winning this fight.

The doors to the sports hall were already open, and Renjun could see that there were five or so targets lining half the width of the hall, one teacher supervising, and maybe twenty students either playing basketball or shooting archery.

Renjun eyed the row of students shooting warily. “How is this safe?” He asked as he watched an arrow embed itself in one of the targets.

Yangyang rolled his eyes. “No one’s going to shoot you, Injun,” he said, which wasn’t very reassuring, but Renjun didn’t have time to say that because then Yangyang was dragging him over to the archery side of the hall.

Jaemin was at the front of the pack, with a target all to himself, and was shooting at it as he spoke to Donghyuck who was sat on the floor next to him. Renjun couldn’t hear what they were saying but he could see the way Jaemin’s arrows kept barely grazing the edge of the bullseye on the target but never quite making it in, and how Jaemin’s eye was starting to twitch.

Jaemin shot each new arrow into the target with more force than the last, all the while maintaining his conversation with Donghyuck. Renjun would have been impressed if he’d actually been hitting the centre of the target.

He pushed his way to the front, and took a bow from where it was resting on a stand.

Standing next to Jaemin now, he could hear their conversation, and he pretended to fiddle around with his bow so he could listen.

“‒because that bitch from St. Stephen’s almost beat me last year,” Jaemin was saying, hurtling another arrow at his target.

“And I get that but shooting like a maniac whenever you have free time clearly isn’t helping.” Donghyuck gestured towards the target. “You’re getting worse the longer you shoot. Just relax before the tournament.” Donghyuck’s words were blunt, but there was concern clear in his voice.

Jaemin shot another arrow, and it landed the furthest out any of his had, in the white area. He let out a noise of frustration and Renjun had to stifle a laugh.

“You know if I stop shooting I’m not going to help you write your English essay.”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “That’s not why I want you to stop. Though I would appreciate it if you lent me your notes.”

Jaemin shot another arrow. Blue. He grimaced and reached for another. “You can have my plan but I still have to finish my economics homework and write my speech and I’ve got to meet Jisung in like ten minutes. So‒” He shot again. Red. “I may as well spend that time shooting.”

Donghyuck leaned back on his hands and splayed his legs out. “You’re a real stubborn bastard, you know?”

Jaemin smiled at him, knocking another arrow to his bow. “And that’s why you love me. Because we’re the same.” Red.

Renjun picked up an arrow of his own, and slid it into his bow. He held it level with the target the other side of the hall, and recalled the memory of that gymnasium back in China even though he hated it. And he pretended that there was a short-tempered archery teacher behind him telling him to square his shoulders and pull his elbow higher. He imagined a face on the target and loosed the bow.

The arrow flew through the air and lodged itself right into the bullseye. Renjun rolled his shoulders back, and tried to not let his excitement show on his face. He could feel Jaemin’s gaze boring holes into the side of his face, and he revelled in it as he lined up his bow for another shot.

Gold. Again.

“You didn’t tell me you could shoot, Injun!” Yangyang was beside him again, cheering happily. “I can’t believe you’ve only done archery once before.”

And maybe Renjun could have felt bad for the lie, but the way Jaemin’s mouth dropped open before he could scramble to close it was enough to absolve any guilt he might have felt.

Jaemin shot again, narrowly missing the red section, and Renjun looked at it with derision in his eyes, and loved the way Jaemin scowled at that. Payback for lacrosse try-outs, Renjun thought.

Renjun shot again, but he aimed for somewhere different. His arrow found the bullseye of Jaemin’s target easily. He grinned in triumph, and savoured the way Jaemin’s mouth pressed into a thin line of anger, and Yangyang’s eyes went wide, mouthing an  _ oh shit _ .

“Sorry,” Renjun said, “since you weren’t really using that part, I thought I would.”

Jaemin looked about ready to fight him, but Renjun held his ground and kept grinning. He picked up another arrow and twirled it around in his fingers. Donghyuck was on his feet then, and wrapping a hand around Jaemin’s wrist as if to say,  _ don’t do anything stupid. _ Jaemin shook his friend off.

“You got trouble staying in your own lane, Scholarship?”

Renjun lined up another shot. “And what if I do, Rich Kid?” Gold. On Jaemin’s target.

Jaemin bared his teeth. “Then I’d have to remind you of your place.”

He stepped forwards. Renjun laughed.

“Why don’t you try to hit a bullseye before you get all cocky, Na?”

Renjun heard Jaemin kiss his teeth, but busied himself with getting his bow ready for another shot, turning away so Jaemin wouldn’t see him smile. He caught Yangyang’s eyes and they both had to suppress a laugh.

“Jaemin,” Donghyuck’s voice came out, low and warning. “Jisung.”

Renjun didn’t know what that meant, but it made Jaemin simmer down with a sigh, and place his bow back on its stand.

“I’ll teach you a little about manners some other time, Wei,” he said. “But right now I have more important things to attend to.”

Renjun watched Jaemin walk away, still smiling. “Have fun at your competition!”

He laughed when Jaemin raised his middle finger at him over his shoulder.

Without Jaemin to belittle with his shooting, archery soon became redundant, and he fed Yangyang some excuse about English homework so he could leave.

With not much to actually do, Renjun settled for heading to the library, which was usually the best place for some peace because of how big it was and how students could each have their own isolated corner, hidden between the stacks.

The library, by nature, was quiet. It looked like a library from an old estate of some kind, with rows of bookshelves that stretched upwards four or so metres to the ceiling, and wooden ladders resting along each row that could slide to wherever you needed to get a book from. The room was similar in layout to the common room below, but wholly more traditional in style, with large padded seats replacing the windowsills of the arched windows that lined either side of the walls.

There weren’t many students. A few had books sprawled out over tables, frantically writing or looking like they were moments from crying, but most of the school was in class, and most sixth formers preferred to spend their frees not doing work.

Renjun made his way through the centre aisle of the library, his footsteps quiet on the soft carpet.

There was an upstairs area, as well, a large balcony of sorts that hung above the bottom half of the library, filled with armchairs and an exhaustive fiction section of books recommended by teachers and past students that they all swore you ‘had to read before finishing school in order to enrich your life’. Renjun thought the idea was ridiculous, but his sketchbook sat at the bottom of his bag, and the upstairs part of the library was perfect for some private sketching before his physics lesson.

He made his way up the spiral wooden staircase, greeting the librarian as he passed her desk.

He had gotten to the top stair when he saw Jaemin, kneeling in front of one of the sofas. Renjun rolled his eyes because of course he was here, and was about to call out, but stopped himself short when he saw how Jaemin’s face was folded in a worried frown, and his mouth was moving in quiet words.

It was a split-second decision, but Renjun hid himself behind one of the bookshelves, crouching down on the floor, and peeking out from the side so he could still see what was going on.

There was a boy Renjun vaguely recognised from being a spectator at the practice decathlon sitting on the sofa in front of Jaemin. He had messy black hair, a slim face, and lean build.

He was taller than Jaemin, his knees sticking up in the air, bent awkwardly, even as he sat down, but the way he sat made his presence much smaller than Jaemin's ‒ who exuded confidence with every motion. On the contrary, this boy had his hands gathered in front of him and was playing with his own fingers nervously. Jaemin seemed to notice this as well, and reached out to hold the boy's hands in his own, effectively keeping them apart and still.

The boy had circular wire glasses pushed too far up his nose, and was chewing on his upper lip.

“Sungie, I need you to listen to me, alright?” Jaemin was saying, his voice barely above a murmur. Jaemin was trying hard to maintain eye contact even as this boy ‒ Jisung, Renjun guessed ‒ tried to avoid it. “And I mean really listen.”

Jaemin’s voice was the softest Renjun had ever heard it, and that stirred an emotion he couldn’t name in him.

“What for?” Jisung said, sounding wholly dejected. “All you’re going to tell me is that I shouldn’t stress too much about them because they don’t matter but that’s a lie and we both know it. I barely saw you last year because of how stressed you were, Jaemin. So you can’t tell me they don’t matter because that makes you a hypocrite.”

Jaemin chuckled, a little strained.

“And it’s because I stressed so much that I can tell you they don’t matter. No one even thinks about GCSE’s after results day, I promise you.”

“That’s easy for you to say! You got like all nine’s.”

“And it’s  _ because _ I did so well that you can trust me when I say they don’t matter. And do you know how I know that?” Jisung shook his head, and Jaemin pulled their hands towards him, making it so Jisung was closer to him, like he was sharing some coveted secret. Renjun had to strain his ears to hear. “Because I spent a very, very long time worrying about these exams, and a very short time celebrating their results.” There was something sad in his voie Renjun didn’t want to think too deeply about. He drew back and said, louder. “GCSE’s become irrelevant the day after results day. Got it?”

Jisung nodded, he still looked worried, but his shoulders looked less tense and there was less fear in his eyes. He seemed more comfortable in his own body.

“My teacher predicted me a  _ four _ in English, Jaemin.”

Jaemin frowned. “A four isn’t bad. That’s a pass.”

Jisung looked appalled. “I can’t get a four. My parents would kill me.”

Jaemin squeezed Jisung’s hands tighter. “We’ll get you higher then.”

“You say that like it’s easy.”

Jaemin shrugged. “You’re smart, Sungie. And I’ll help you. Two hours every Wednesday and Saturday, like we said, okay? We’ll get you there, I promise.”

Jisung didn’t look entirely convinced, but he also didn’t seem as anxious as he did earlier. Renjun let out a breath of relief, though he didn’t quite understand why.

“Okay,” Jisung said, but it lacked conviction.

Renjun saw Jaemin raise an eyebrow.

“Okay,” Jisung said again, more confidently this time.

Jaemin let go of one of Jisung’s hands to ruffle his hair. “There we go,” he said, an unmistakable undertone of pride that Jisung beamed at.

Renjun took that as his cue, and crept back down the stairs. On his way out of the library, he couldn’t help but picture Jaemin’s face as he talked to Jisung in his mind. It was different from the carefully arrogant Jaemin in class, or the silent but powerful force on the lacrosse pitch, or the frustrated Jaemin who couldn’t hit the bullseye, or even the carefree Jaemin running lines with his best friend at the weekend.

It was a Jaemin who was putting his own busy schedule ‒ which Renjun had personally seen ‒ on the backburner in favour of helping someone else. It was a Jaemin who sacrificed his own comfort by kneeling on the ground so someone else could be more comfortable. It was a Jaemin Renjun hadn’t seen before and Renjun didn’t like that.

He kept discovering new sides to this person Renjun had decided on his first day in England he didn’t like. Sides that made him more human, more difficult to understand and hate.

Renjun shook the thought from his head.

It was easier to judge Jaemin based on how he acted towards him and just ignore how he acted to anyone else. But still, there was that nagging feeling at the back of his head. Nagging him to remember the downright tender look on Jaemin’s face, the way he only smiled when Jisung did. But Renjun didn’t want to.

  
  


Renjun walked out of English, essay with a fat  _ E _ on it at the bottom of his bag and a glower on his face.

He ignored his classmates all filing out around him, and headed straight for his own room, grateful that it was his last lesson of the day. He sulked as he walked. Jaemin had gotten an  _ A _ , as Donghyuck had announced to the class for him.

Renjun’s paper was crinkled from where he’d crumbled it into a ball before frantically straightening it out when Williams had glared at him, and now it was squashed under his maths textbook,  _ as it should be, _ he thought.

The letter  _ E _ haunted him the entire way back to his room, clouded over his eyes so all he could see was that letter in an ugly shade of red, circled at the top of his paper.

He bumped into something and turned to level them with a glare for getting in his way, but stopped short when he realised it was Chenle.

“Injun!” Chenle chirped. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” Renjun said. He looked to where a tall boy he knew was lurking behind Chenle, looking horribly awkward and frowned. Why was he there?

Chenle followed his line of sight, and his grin grew somehow wider.

“Injun, this is my best friend Jisung. Jisung, this is Injun; he’s new.”

Jisung smiled shyly, and waved. Renjun tried hard to keep the shock off of his face, and offered a terse smile back.

“Your best friend?” Renjun asked.

Chenle nodded excitedly. Renjun tried to match up the boisterous Chenle with the timid Jisung, who was also Jaemin’s pseudo-younger brother, and found them incompatible. He found himself wondering how Jaemin knew Jisung, if he was apparently in Chenle’s year and his best friend.

He forcibly had to remind himself that he didn’t care.

“Cool,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

Jisung smiled again. “You too.”

“See you around, Chenle?”

“‘Course, Injun.” Chenle winked when he said Renjun’s alias, and Renjun had to resist the urge to hit him over the head.

He walked past the pair of them, hearing Jisung quietly say, “that was so awkward, Lele. Why do you never warn me?” and Chenle laugh loudly before their voices were swallowed by the crowd of students around them.

  
  


Half-term was a week-long holiday, and Renjun kicked it off with a five hour long shift at the restaurant after lacrosse training.

The bustle was becoming easier to manage now, and he could move fluidly in sync with the rest of the staff. He was getting better at memorising orders, and plastering on fake smiles when dealing with rude customers, and just working in general. He couldn’t tell if he liked that.

He had a geography textbook he’d borrowed from the library sitting open on a page about the physical features of rivers in the kitchen for him to study from during his breaks, since Jeno had told him he was still weak on geography at their practice earlier at lunch.

Part of the reason he was able to suffer with irritable customers was due to him using most of his mental capacity to recite what deltas and ox-bow lakes were in his head, but Kun looked proud of him nonetheless.

He left the restaurant around half-nine, a wad of cash in his jacket pocket that he’d collected from his tips over the past week and the promise of a pay-cheque next Friday. The thought of that, along with the absence of all classes and subsequent Jaemin Na’s for the rest of the week was enough to put a spring in his step, and he bopped along to his music on the bus back up the hill to the school.

The student body was split almost down the middle for who left the school over half-term and those who lived too far to make the effort. Renjun definitely belonged to the latter category but that was fine because most of his friends did, too.

It had been a good day, and Renjun was surprised at the number of those he was having. The homesickness still struck him at the weirdest of times, a painful longing that would suddenly hit him in the middle of a physics lesson and have him sneaking out to the bathroom to call one of his friends or his brother. But it wasn’t so bad now. Not now that he had, as cheesy as it sounded to his own ears, found a little bit of a new home in his new friends.

Still, no matter how good the day had been, it had also been very long. And Renjun found himself yearning for his bed and a good night’s sleep before the holidays properly began tomorrow.

As it turned out, he had no such luck.

He groaned as he approached the door to his room, already hearing the laughter and music coming from within.

He pushed open the door to see his friends sat in a circle on the floor between the two beds. There was a bluetooth speaker in the middle of them, and littered around were about a dozen cans of what looked to be cider or gin and tonic.

“Injun!” They all cheered when he walked through the door.

Yangyang grinned; it was lopsided. “Care to celebrate surviving the first half-term of the year with us, Injunnie?” He patted the space next to him.

Renjun rolled his eyes but grinned and took the place Yangyang had left for him. Yukhei chucked him a can, and Renjun opened it, relishing the noise it made. It was fruity against his tongue, nothing strong, but enough for a light buzz.

And maybe he was tired, but his new friends had bought him alcohol and were inviting him to play truth or dare and making him feel as though he’d known them longer than six weeks and maybe his bed didn’t seem as enticing anymore.

Renjun laughed, an uncontrollable, loud thing that racked through his body and made it hard to breathe as Chenle completed his dare. It wasn’t that he was tipsy, though he was sure the alcohol definitely helped, but this small group of friends he had miraculously collated genuinely caused him to wheeze with laughter.

He hadn’t expected to find true laughter so far away from the only friends he’d had his entire life, and the thought of it sent a bittersweet pang of emotion through his chest, which he quickly drowned with laughter as Jungwoo launched into a story about how his horse had thrown him off her back the day he’d changed his cologne because she hadn’t recognised him.

“But I like this cologne a lot more,” Yukhei said with an exaggerated sniff. “We’ve got a matching set, you know? You lot could never.”

“Never what?” Yangyang snorted. “Smell the same as the person we snog? Why would we want to?”

“It’s cute!” Yukhei defended. “You’re just jealous.”

“Of literally what?” Chenle chimed in.

“Alright, listen here you brat‒”

“Xuxi,” Jungwoo called, and Yukhei broke off mid-sentence, head snapping to face Jungwoo and gaze instantly softening.

Renjun devolved into laughter again along with Chenle and Yangyang.

Jungwoo handed Yukhei’s phone to him, and Yukhei quickly scanned through whatever he’d just been sent. When he looked up, it was with a wide grin on his face.

“Mark just texted,” he said, “he and some of the year twelves are playing poker over in Rowan. He invited us to join. You lot in?”

A collective eager nod went around the group, and Yukhei shot a quick text back to Mark and gathered up a few of the undrunk cans in his hands.

“Will the head boy be okay with the illegal drinking?” Renjun asked, suddenly struck by an image of them turning up to the poker game only for Mark to call the police on them and get them all arrested.

The only answer he received in response was laughter, and Renjun couldn’t tell if that relaxed or unsettled him. Either way, he picked up his half-drunk gin and tonic can and followed Yukhei out of the room.

Rowan, at first glance, was much newer than Juniper. And, at second glance, was much nicer.

The hallways were wider, and there were fewer rooms per floor. They moved as a pack through the corridors, still joking and laughing as they did so until they reached room 314.

Yangyang didn’t bother to knock, and just pushed the door open.

The first thing Renjun noticed was how much bigger this room was than his own, how the beds were bigger and there was much more floor space. The second thing Renjun noticed was exactly who was sat in that floor space, an open beer bottle next to him. Jaemin Na. And his band of rip-off plastics. Renjun’s mood soured.

Luckily, Mark spoke before either Renjun or Jaemin could.

“Guys, come sit down!” His voice was even more energetic than usual, and his gestures even wilder, which Renjun hadn’t known was possible until that very moment. “We’re playing Texas hold’em.” He said it with an attempted southern accent, and it was so horrendously bad, but Renjun found himself smiling and sitting down next to him anyway.

Donghyuck, from Mark’s other side, glared at him, but Renjun paid him no mind.

“Sorry, Wei,” Jaemin said, smiling sweetly at Renjun from across the circle. “Not sure you can afford to play.” He gestured at the pile of chips in the centre of the circle.

Renjun saw Yangyang seethe but also look nervous out of the corner of his eye, but just kept his gaze levelled on Jaemin.

“What’s the buy-in?”

“A hundred and fifty.”

Renjun dug his cash out from his jacket pocket and threw it down in front of Jaemin.

“That’s about fifty,” he said. He turned to Chenle. “Think you can spot me the rest? I’ll pay you back with my winnings.”

He knew Chenle was the best person to ask for this. Chenle, who knew his true identity, knew his reputation. A headline from about a year ago was at the forefront of his mind when he smirked at Chenle. Chenle returned it, and Renjun knew they were thinking of the same thing.

Chenle chucked him a wad of bills. “I expect to be paid back in full with interest,” he grinned.

Renjun looked at Jaemin when he responded. “I’ll pay you back double.”

Jaemin scowled, but allowed Jeno to deal Renjun in.

“Don’t get cocky now, Scholarship,” he said, a teasing lilt of warning beneath his voice.

Renjun lifted up his cards and looked at them.

“It’s not cocky if I can back it up, Rich Kid,” he said. “And I think you’ll find I can.”

“Oh my god!” Yangyang broke through the tension, effectively capturing everyone’s attention. “Can you guys stop flirting already so we can play?”

Renjun and Jaemin both let out noises of displeasure, but Yangang ignored them in favour of asking Jeno to deal the first card into the river.

Renjun breathed out slowly and rolled his shoulders back.

“Fold.”

Jaemin won the round.

The secret to poker, and Renjun’s confidence in it, was mathematics.

Poker wasn’t a game of chance; it was a game of probability. And Renjun loved probability.

“Fold.”

Donghyuck won the round.

Because Donghyuck’s acting skills might let him have an excellent poker face, make him nearly unreadable. And Chenle might have had a great offense tactic.

“Fold.”

And Jaemin might have been great with manipulation, and reading other’s tells.

“Fold.”

But poker wasn’t a game of acting or tactics or people skills. Poker was a game of maths. And if there was one thing Renjun was confident in, it was that he was the best at maths.

“Raise it fifty.”

That earned him a few surprised faces, but Renjun pretended he couldn’t see them.

“Getting brave, huh, Wei?” Jaemin smirked and plucked a blue chip from the small mountain beside his knee, chucking it into the middle. “Call.”

Renjun didn’t respond. Maths was a waiting game. And he’d done his waiting.

“Raise it a hundred.”

Maybe he was getting cocky now, but there was satisfaction to be gained in making both Jeno and Mark fold out.

“He’s bluffing.”

Renjun shrugged as Jeno dealt the final card into the river. Renjun suppressed a grin. The maths was always right.

Jaemin lay his cards down with a flourish. “Three of a kind.”

Renjun did the same. “Full house.”

Jaemin gawked, and Renjun pulled his newly earned chips towards himself.

“You got lucky,” Jaemin accused, and Renjun despised that sentiment but didn’t say that.

Instead he said, “then why don’t you try and win the next round, Na?”

Jaemin glared at him. Renjun glared back. Chenle laughed.

“Straight flush.”

“Four of a kind.”

“Fold.”

“Royal flush.”

Chip after chip was added to Renjun’s collection, and with each one, Jaemin grew more and more annoyed. But that just spurred Renjun on more. Until, finally, it was only the two of them left in the game, the others either going bankrupt, or choosing to back out while they still had some chips left.

Not Jaemin, though. He stayed in the game even as his pile of chips dwindled rapidly. There was something admirable about that, Renjun supposed, but mostly it was stupid. No wonder Jaemin was falling behind in maths.

There was three hundred in the pot, and Renjun’s cards were sure to win. Jaemin looked at him over the top of his own cards, and, had Renjun not trusted maths above everything else, he might have been fooled by Jaemin’s bluff.

The others clearly were, and Renjun could feel the general consensus that he was going to lose, but he kept his own face carefully blank and pushed his entire pile of chips into the centre.

“All in,” he said.

There wasn’t even the slightest flicker of nervousness or surprise on Jaemin’s face, and, for a small moment of weakness, Renjun almost doubted his maths. Jaemin, for his many faults, was admittedly skilled.

Jaemin pushed his own, considerably smaller, pile into the centre, and cocked a smirk.

Jeno reached for the deck, and was about to lift the card and end the suspense when a song began to play from one of the phones laying on the floor.

It was something Renjun didn’t recognise, with a deep voice rapping in a language Renjun didn’t understand over a melodic beat. Renjun saw Jaemin roll his eyes, and stretch to turn his phone off. He saw Donghyuck and Jeno both exchange a look Renjun couldn’t decipher before they turned to level Jaemin with it, though he ignored them.

“You’re not going to answer it?” Mark asked, clearly missing the tension between the three of them. “That’s Taeyong, right? You’re just going to ignore it?”

Renjun could see how Donghyuck sighed heavily, looking like he wanted to face-palm.

The look Jaemin shot Mark was nothing less than scathing, and even Renjun felt somewhat scared.

“Just because you’re obsessed with Taeyong doesn’t mean we all are, Lee,” he said dryly. Mark looked highly offended, his eyebrows drawing into the middle of his forehead. “You can take the call if you’re that desperate to talk to him.” He held his phone out to Mark, challenge and derision obvious in his eyes.

There was a prolonged uncomfortable silence as Jaemin and Mark stared at each other, and Jaemin’s phone continued to ring in his hand.

Jeno cleared his throat awkwardly.

Jaemin looked at his friend, and they had an entire non-verbal conversation in the span of about two seconds. Jaemin sighed and declined the call. He turned back to the game.

“Deal it.”

Jeno finally lay the final card into the river, and Renjun couldn’t help the smile that came over his face when he saw that it was exactly what he’d thought it would be.

Jaemin still didn’t seem deterred, but Renjun knew it was just a façade. Yukhei counted them in, getting louder and more excitable with each number.

On three, Jaemin and Renjun lay their cars on the floor, face-up. Renjun heard a collective gasp leave all their friends when they realised Jaemin had only got a pair, where Renjun had a straight.

Jaemin didn’t seem surprised by his loss, though he did seem annoyed.

“I totally thought Jaemin was gonna win,” Yangyang said, a sort of stupefied awe to his voice that made Renjun snort.

“Glad to know you think so highly of me, buddy,” he said.

The entire group of them were staring at the cards on the floor, an array of flabbergasted expressions on their faces, and Renjun felt his chest swell with smugness.

“Chenle,” he said, trying to sound cool even as he wanted to jump and boast about his win. “You can take the pot. Thanks for the loan.”

Chenle grinned, and slid the pile over to himself. Renjun watched as Jaemin’s eyes followed the chips.

“Good game, guys,” he said, allowing some of the haughtiness he’d missed to creep into his voice. “Na,” Jaemin’s head snapped up, “if you ever feel like losing more money to the scholarship kid, just give me a call.”

Jaemin bared his teeth. “I consider it giving money to charity.”

“Call it what you want, Na. You still lost.”

When Renjun returned to his room that night, it was with a much bigger wad of cash in his jacket pocket and such a wide smile on his face his cheeks ached.

  
  


The half-term holiday passed quickly after that. The poker game had given Renjun the funds to spend his holiday drinking jasmine green tea from the coffee shop in town and sketching in the upper nook of the library or tucked up in one of the window sills when he wasn’t playing board games with his friends.

There was something, not exciting per say, but definitely something quaint about spending a week in the English countryside, all his homework finished and not much to do. It was so far removed from what he knew, from the constant bustle and barrage of noise of the city where no one ever slept and entertainment took the form of crowded clubs and high-end shopping and video games on giant televisions.

Here, Renjun learnt to spend an hour or two listening to music while sipping a hot drink and watching the rain.

It frightened him that he enjoyed it. He wouldn’t say more so than his life back in Shanghai, because the absence of home still ached like a hole in his chest, but he wasn’t so overtly unhappy with his situation now, and that was worrying.

Half-term ended without significant event, and the second half of the autumn term followed suit.

It was day after day of lessons and homework and lacrosse and decathlon, and work, and Renjun found himself much busier than he had been in a while. He barely saw Jaemin, and when he did, he always looked about ready to collapse, even if he hid it well beneath his usual holier-than-thou expression.

And Renjun didn’t want to care about how his self-appointed rival was doing, but it was hard not to when they met every Sunday for a two hour rehearsal of their pieces. Jaemin was near perfect on the piano, and Renjun marvelled at his skill as they played.

He’d chosen a difficult piece, something from the Romantic period that was melodic, reminiscent of a warm fire and Renjun begrudgingly admitted that it was perfect for the Winter season.

They spent most of their sessions in silence, which surprised Renjun since he’d expected them to do nothing but bicker. But it seemed either Jaemin was truly that dedicated to orchestra, or he was too tired to bother. Renjun hoped it was the former.

The piece traded off between who got the melody and who acted as the accompaniment, another thing that Renjun hadn’t expected from Jaemin. He’d expected Jaemin to pick something that would put a spotlight on his own playing, rather than a piece that was arranged with an actual balance, but he wasn’t complaining.

They were at the last section of the piece, where Renjun took a backseat, playing long notes quietly, and Jaemin performed a series of complex chromatics and arpeggios ‒ an imitation of an earlier part of Renjun’s ‒ when Jaemin hit the wrong note. Again.

Jaemin let out a noise of such intense frustration, and slammed his hands on the keyboard of the piano. Renjun winced at the attack of discordant noise.

“For fuck’s sake,” Jaemin said under his breath. “Why can I never get that part right?”

Renjun didn’t know if Jaemin wanted an actual answer, and paused before speaking.

“It’s a difficult part. I get mine wrong, too.”

Jaemin turned to look at him, a weird emotion in his eyes.

“Don’t try to console me, Wei,” he said tersely.

Renjun rolled his eyes. “Fine. You’re shit at the piano and you should give up right now.”

Jaemin smiled. It was weak, but it still counted. “See, it’s much easier for me to disagree with you than it is to accept your help.”

“I’ll just hurl abuse at you until we get it right then, shall I? I’d actually love that.”

“Let’s just take it from the upbeat to bar seventy two.” Jaemin turned back to the piano and took a deep breath.

Renjun lifted his bow and watched Jaemin for his cue.

Renjun fell too easily into the routine of Injun Wei, and didn’t know what it meant that he liked it more than the routine of Renjun Huang.

  
  


“Atomic structure of calcium?”

“Two, eight, eight, two.”

“Battle of Hastings?”

“1066.”

“Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2017?”

“Kazuo Ishiguro.” 

“Who’s gonna win tomorrow?”

“The Summoners!”

Yangyang snapped the book he’d been reading from shut and threw it on the floor, falling back to lie on his bed with a cheer.

“Yes we fucking are!”

Renjun laughed, and lay back on his own bed.

Anticipation was swirling around in his stomach, making him buzz with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. He distantly wondered what the him of two months ago would say about him getting this engrossed with a school academic competition of all things. The thought was swallowed by nerves.

“We’re gonna smash them tomorrow, Injunnie.”

Renjun grinned. “We’ve got this in the bag.”

  
  


The school hall was decorated with a large banner draped from the ceiling, over the back wall of the stage.  _ Chaucer School Inter-house Academic Decathlon 2019 _ it read.

There were two tables on the stage, arranged in the same way they had been at the practice decathlon. Another table was on the floor, in the middle of the aisle that separated one half of the rows of chairs from the other. This table only had three seats, and Yangyang told him it was reserved for the judges and moderator.

Renjun’s school back home hadn’t had any of this sort of house system. All the inner school rivalry came from politics and wealth and status rather than something so artificial and frivolous. But there was something about such low-stakes tournaments like these, Renjun thought. Outside of the school, these competitions meant nothing, but inside, tensions were hiked beyond life and death.

The hall was split into four clear sections, each student repping their house colours, and chanting rhymes for their respective house.

Renjun and Yangyang made their way to the front of the hall, where the rest of their team was huddled off to the side of the stage. Jeno saw them and ushered them over to join the circle.

“Okay,” Jeno said, “we’re up against the Physicians first. They have Jungwoo, so watch out for him if mythology comes up. And Changbin is unmatched for biology so don’t be discouraged if we fall behind during that round. They’ve also got Yukhei as their own personal cheerleader, so try your best to not be put off by him because the boy is  _ loud  _ loud.” Jeno smiled. “Just relax, pretend we’re back in practice and we’ll be fine. We’ve got this, Summoners.”

He put his hand into the centre of their huddle, and Renjun followed his teammates as they all stacked their own hands on top of their captain’s.

“Summoners on three. One. Two‒”

“Summoners!”

They all lifted their hands into the air, and Renjun could feel energy spread to every muscle in his body. He and Yangyang shared a look as they took their seats, even as he found it hard to stay still with how excited he was. Let the games begin.

  
  


As the name suggested, there were ten rounds in the decathlon, but they all blended into one another, the entire game against the Physicians whipping past in a blur of bells and questions and answers.

He remembered buzzing in on the history round, and getting most of his answers right. He remembered being upset that there hadn’t been a maths round, and he remembered thinking that Jungwoo was much smarter than he’d thought he was. He remembered Yukhei cheering louder than anyone else whenever the Physicians scored a point and he remembered the utter euphoria he got when Jeno buzzed in to answer the final question correctly and win them the game.

His team jumped around in a group hug the moment they’d realised they’d won, and Renjun loved the cheers that came from the Summoners’ section of the hall.

Jeno congratulated them all with ecstatic words of praise, and then shook hands with the Physicians’ captain before they went to sit down again.

On his way past the judges table, Renjun could have sworn Headmaster Moon gave him a nod and a smile.

The Knights’ row of seats was in front of them, and Renjun could hear Mark speak while the judges discussed something.

Mark leaned over Donghyuck to where Jaemin was sat, and said, “Taeyong just sent a good luck message! Did you get one, too?” Donghyuck scowled, but Renjun didn’t know what it was at.

Jaemin looked away from where he’d been turned around, congratulating Jeno. “My phone’s off,” he said dryly, and then turned away again.

Mark opened his mouth to say something, but Headmaster Moon spoke over him.

“Could the Knights and the Shipmen please make their way to the stage?”

Renjun watched as Jaemin stood up and took a calculated breath, plastering on a charming smile before he led his team to the front of the hall and took his seat. Above the surface, Jaemin seemed perfectly calm and poised, hands resting delicately on the surface on the table in front of him, but Renjun could see the slight tremour to his left hand, and how he had to keep reminding himself to stop shaking his leg under the table.

Despite that, Jaemin answered questions with ease. He worked well with his team ‒ even Mark ‒ and he spoke coolly, as though it were all easy. And maybe it was for him, Renjun thought bitterly. Maybe Jaemin was much like the Renjun of the past, who breezed through these things without having to recite things over and over to memorise them because they just came easily.

Jaemin and his team demolished their competition. Renjun watched half in awe, half in fear, as they dominated each round. And maybe it should have put him off competing against them, but it stoked the competitive flame in his gut until it was a raging fire, and he was sitting on the edge of his seat, unable to contain his exhilaration.

From the looks of it, the rest of his team were in more or less the same boat, as they were all watching the game with the same kind of rapture on their faces.

It didn’t surprise anyone when the Knights won in a landslide, though it did surprise Renjun when Jaemin let out a sigh of relief, as though he’d been holding his breath the entire game, before he replaced it with his normal cocky grin.

It surprised Renjun even more when Jaemin leant over to Mark who was sitting next to him and pulled him in for a hug, muttering something in his ear that made Mark laugh and clap him on the shoulder. Renjun frowned, confused, and thought of  _ I’ve known him too long to not like him  _ and wondered just how much there was beneath the surface there. If, like all relationships between rich people, it was smothered in layers upon layers of nonsensical bullshit.

Renjun shook the thought from his head when Headmaster Moon started speaking again.

“Congratulations to our finalists. Summoners, if you could please come take your place.”

Jeno stood up, and smiled at their section of the hall before he fixed a steely, determined look on his face and began to walk towards the stage. Yangyang squeezed Renjun’s hand before they followed after him, taking their seats.

Renjun’s heartbeat was loud in his ears, louder even than the cheers of the audience, louder than Headmaster Moon speaking. There were hundreds of eyes on him, and he could feel them pricking at his skin like needles. He tried not to fidget in his seat, but gave up and seized the pen he’d been given, turning it over in his fingers and clicking it again and again, just for some way to expel the nervous energy building relentlessly inside of him, threatening to bubble out.

He looked over to the Knights’ table, and had to fight a smile when he saw that Jaemin was taking apart his own pen, methodically unscrewing it and removing the spring and ink cartridge all without looking at it. It was nice to know he wasn’t alone in what he was feeling.

He caught Yangyang’s eyes, who then reached out to move the pen out of his reach.  _ Calm down _ , he mouthed, and Renjun wished he could tell him that that was quite possibly the worst thing anyone could say right now, but didn’t and just shot him a tight-lipped smile instead.

He focused his attention back on what was going on around him, and willed his heartbeat to dim down in his ears.

“Mr Kim,” Headmaster Moon said, throwing a coin into the air. It landed gracefully in his palm, which he then slapped onto the back of his other hand. “Call it.”

“Tails,” Jeno said.

Moon removed his hand and smiled. “Tails it is. Would you please choose a number between one and ten?”

“Three.”

Moon smiled, and picked up a sheet of paper from one of the piles on the table in front of him.

“House Knights, are you ready?”

Jaemin looked at Jeno for a fragment of a moment, then at his team, before focusing back on Moon.

“Yes.”

“House Summoners, are you ready?”

“Yes.” Jeno didn’t hesitate.

“Then let us commence Chaucer School’s Annual Inter-House Academic Decathlon 2019.” The full title was quite a mouthful, and Renjun was impressed that Headmaster Moon made it without stumbling once. “Our first topic is Literature.”

He paused for suspense, and Renjun felt his heartbeat speed up where the organ hammered in his chest.

“How many times is the act of suicide committed in Shakespeare’s plays?”

Donghyuck buzzed in before Renjun could even process the question.

“Mr Lee?”

“Thirteen.”

“Correct. Five points to the Knights.”

Donghyuck beamed as his house began to chant his name, and Renjun scowled.

The first points were always important. They set a precedent of sorts for how the rest of the game would go. It was one of the psychology things Jeno had yapped on about in their practice sessions, and Renjun now had the words ringing in his head. But it was fine. It was one question; they could pull it back.

Renjun closed his eyes and counted to three.

He opened his eyes again and breathed slowly out through his nose. He clicked his neck from side to side.

He could do this.

“Which geographical feature describes when vertical erosion causes the land to link‒”

Renjun slammed his hand against his buzzer. They were lagging behind, and maybe a risk play was worth it. He could see the page in his textbook in his mind when he closed his eyes.

He opened them.

“Interlocking spurs.”

“Correct, Mr Wei.”

Renjun let out a breath as his house cheered for him.

30-25.

“Define a megacity.”

Jeno’s buzzer rang out.

“A city with a population of over ten million.”

“Correct.”

Jeno smiled, his eyes pressing into crescents.

30-30. All tied up.

Renjun chanced a look at Jaemin, saw how his leg was bouncing under the desk, and how he let it, almost as though he hadn’t noticed he was doing it. Renjun faced the front again.

“Our fourth topic is Politics.”

The round went quickly, a brutal whirlwind of questions and answers hurtled across the stage and buzzers being abused in the contestants’ haste to answer. Renjun felt like each nerve in his body had been electrified, making him too aware of his every movement.

“Which UK constituency holds the record for the fastest result declaration ever, set at the 1997 General Election?”

“Sunderland South.”

Politics was Donghyuck’s playground.

Renjun moved almost entirely on instinct for most of the questions, relying on his mind to fill in the gaps once he opened his mouth. It seemed that everyone else was acting in more or less the same way. The tension was beyond palpable, to the point Renjun nearly choked on it with every breath.

“Pioneer 10.”

“Camels.”

“Secularism.”

65-70

70-70

75-70

The scoreboard was ridiculously obnoxious, and Renjun tried to ignore it best he could, but it was hard when it was so impossibly loud and bold and his eyes kept drifting back to it.

“We have now reached our final question.”

Moon’s words jolted through Renjun like ice water through his veins.

He eyed the scoreboard again, and the sinking realisation that everything hinged on this swallowed him bottom-up before he forced himself to look back at the headmaster.

His fingers were positioned as close as they were allowed to be to his buzzer, and he could see them shaking were they were suspended in the air.

He didn’t need to look to know all of the other contestants were in the same boat. The hall, for the first time the entire day, was gripped by a taut silence, each person seemingly holding their breath and leaning subconsciously closer to the front, as though they might miss it.

“Which monarch of England reigned for the shortest period of time?”

Renjun’s fingers had hit his buzzer before he’d even comprehended doing it.

His mind was filled with the bustle of the kitchen at Kun’s restaurant as he tried to recall what he _knew_ that he knew. The eyes on him didn’t help, the massive scoreboard didn’t help, and the anxiety weaving its way through him didn’t help.

“Mr Wei? I need an answer.”

Renjun didn’t want to look up, wanted to stare down at the table and pretend everyone wasn’t staring at him. But his brother had once told him that being a Huang meant looking your trials in the eye. And maybe Renjun wasn’t much of a Huang in a great many aspects, but a stubborn will never skipped a generation.

He met Headmaster Moon’s eyes dead on, and shed the skin of Injun Wei for a brief moment so he could gather the courage he needed.

“Jane Grey.”

Headmaster Moon held his gaze.

“That is correct! Well done, Mr Wei.”

The Summoners in the hall leapt into uproar, and Renjun felt relief flood through him but didn’t let himself relax. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jaemin grit his teeth.

75-75

“Congratulations to both teams,” Moon said. “We will now have a tie-breaker in order to determine the winning house. Whilst Mr Smith gives out the question, I would like to take this time to commend everyone for their effort in making today one of the most exciting academic decathlons in my time here.”

Mr Smith lay a sheet of paper face-down in front of each contestant before returning to his seat next to Moon.

“The topic for this question will be maths.”

Relief. Sweet, indulgent relief. Maths. That Renjun could do. And he could do it the best. He chanced a look at Jaemin, but his face gave nothing away. It didn’t matter. Renjun had seen him in almost every maths lesson this term looking confused as shit. No one else on their team took maths.

The prospect of winning had seemed daunting at the beginning of the first round, but now it was starting to feel welcoming.

“You may now commence.”

Renjun flipped his sheet of paper over and almost laughed out loud when he saw what the problem was. Vectors. Easy.

He skimmed through the information given to find the actual question.

_ Into what ratio does point P split the line RS? _

He worked through the question quickly, the numbers falling out of his head and onto his page as he deciphered it bit by bit. Solving the problem was familiar, routine, and he went through the motions quicker than anyone else could have been.

He was so near the answer, and was just about to equate his coefficients when a buzzer rang out through the hall and his gut dropped dead in his gut.

His head flew up to see Jaemin’s hand still lingering over his buzzer, and the shock that overtook Renjun was cold and dense.

He could still picture it. That maths lesson over a month ago, Jaemin’s confused face, his humiliation when he got the question wrong. There was none of that now.

“Two to five,” Jaemin said.

Renjun looked down, did the rest of his calculations in his head, and swallowed. He knew before Moon announced it that they’d lost.

He slumped down in his chair, feeling Yangyang’s eyes shift from Moon to him, but ignored it in favour of trying to reign in the feeling of utter inadequacy crawling through his bones.

“That is correct, Mr Na! The winners of the 2019 Chaucer School Annual Inter-House Academic Decathlon are the Knights for the tenth consecutive year!”

The Knights’ side of the hall erupted in raucous cheering, and Jaemin threw his arms around Mark, burying his face in his neck. When Jaemin looked up again, his eyes were rimmed red with the effort of holding back tears, and the aftermath of all the tension and pressure had settled over his face like a mask.

Yangyang groaned next to Renjun, and dropped his head on the table. Jeno had a difficult expression to decipher as he watched the Knights’ team jump up and down in a group hug. But Renjun didn’t have the energy for that anyway. Not when disappointment and the feeling of stupidity weighed down on him more with every breath he took.

It was over. It was over and he had lost.

Jaemin shook Jeno’s hand, smiling widely, even as Jeno looked dejected. Jaemin said something and Jeno laughed, though it looked sad.

Moon was speaking about something or the other, but Renjun didn’t care enough to listen to a speech about the winners when he was not personally included in that category. He sat there and sulked, staring at the page of his rough working with vehemence as though it were the paper’s fault.

And maybe it was childish, but Renjun needed something to be angry at besides his own shortcomings.

He stalked back to his seat in the crowd, ignoring his fellow house-mates’ attempts at consoling him. Yangyang sat next to him and neither of them said anything, neither of them even looked at the other, but Renjun appreciated the camaraderie there.

There was comfort to be found in the fact that he wasn’t alone as a loser.

Renjun didn’t know how much time had passed when he next looked up. All he knew was that the Knights were now back in their own seats in front of the Summoners, with giddy grins on their faces that Renjun couldn’t look at without feeling nauseous.

There was also a bronze shield sat on Jaemin’s lap, decorated with red ribbons. He was holding it with a delicate touch, a sort of private reverence that made envy spread through Renjun like ice. Renjun wanted to throw it out of the window.

Donghyuck leaned over to Jaemin. “Are you going to call him  _ now _ ?”

Jaemin’s grin faltered slightly, but was back up in full-force not a moment later. “Mark will tell him and even if he doesn’t Jeno will tell Doyoung and he’ll hear it from him.”

“You know he’ll want to hear it from you.”

Jaemin’s gaze fell to the shield on his lap. “I’ll think about it.”

Donghyuck sighed and moved to sit properly in his chair again. They both knew Jaemin had been lying.

“And now for what you’ve all been waiting for,” Headmaster Moon said from the stage, effectively capturing the entire hall’s attention, “Chaucer School’s official team for the National Academic Decathlon Competition 2020.”

Renjun tuned out and slumped further down in his seat. He wasn’t in the mood for the Knights to be praised even more.

“Our first alternate is Donghyuck Lee.”

Renjun sat up. Donghyuck hadn’t made the actual team. What?

Yangyang seemed to sense his confusion and leaned over to whisper in his ear, “it’s not always the winning team; they just choose who they think did the best and so have the best chance of winning.”

Renjun felt hope well up in his chest before he could squash it.

Donghyuck had walked over to the stage, and was standing beside Moon with his chest out and his chin up.

“Our first team member to represent the school is Jungwoo Kim.”

Renjun clapped along with the rest of the student body. Jungwoo’s success he could, at the very least, be somewhat happy about.

Jungwoo stood next to Donghyuck on the stage, looking embarrassed by Yukhei’s excessively loud yelling. Donghyuck gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder and a grin.

“Injun Wei.”

Renjun didn’t entirely compute that until Yangyang pushed his shoulder so hard it forced him to stand up. He briefly caught sight on Jaemin, who looked distinctly like a toddler whose toy had been stolen. He gripped his shield tighter than necessary.

He stood in line next to Jungwoo, who smiled at him. Renjun tried to forget the disappointment of a moment ago in favour of basking in the applause.

“Mark Lee.”

Mark high-fived many people on his way to the stage, and stood with his hands behind his back as he took his place next to Renjun.

“Jeno Kim.”

Jeno didn’t look surprised, but he did look happy, his eyes turning up into half-moons as he walked to the front of the hall.

“And finally, our captain for his second year, Jaemin Na.”

Jaemin took the shield with him when he took his place in line. He looked confident, overly so, with his head tilted up so he was looking down on the entire hall. Renjun hated that he looked perfect.

“And so our team is complete!” Moon said. “We all wish you the best of luck, boys. Do the school proud; bring home the trophy.”

The cheers increased in volume and Jaemin took a moment to revel in them before he spoke.

“We will, sir.”

Renjun’s life felt a little empty after that. Jaemin gave them a week after the inter-house decathlon to rest before they started up actual practice, and the days felt like something was missing when they weren’t filled with Jeno drilling them on facts about the Roman empire.

It was a strange mix of feelings, having lost but still having been chosen for the team. It was weird, because Yangyang hadn’t and was trying hard to hide that he was upset, but Renjun had known him for long enough now to see through him. He tried to make it up to him, listened to him talk about Michael Schumacher and watched TV shows he didn’t really enjoy with him.

Yangyang seemed happier in a few days, and Renjun was glad for it.

Jaemin also walked around the school with a renewed confidence which infuriated Renjun every time he saw him. The worst part of it all, was that Jaemin was now his captain in two of his extracurriculars, and Renjun didn’t like how much power that gave him.

When decathlon practice did finally start, Renjun learned that it was even more intensive than Jeno’s had been. That Jaemin had such a spark of competitiveness and desire to win that it turned into a full raging fire in whichever classroom they used.

Renjun enjoyed it, though. The constant challenge.

His school back home had been boring, mentally unchallenging. This could be difficult at times, but it was fun. Renjun had missed the type of fun that wasn’t designed to piss off his parents.

  
  


Renjun finished his part of the melody with a tiny, inaudible exhale, and let muscle memory take over as he became the backing, eyes shifting over to Jaemin.

Jaemin, ever the professional performer, showed not even the slightest sign of struggle as his hands flew across the keys of the piano, soft touches growing into harsher ones, a swelling crescendo that Renjun responded to in kind.

Jaemin made it through the section artfully. They strung out the final note together, and Jaemin turned to meet Renjun’s eyes with something so pure and happy Renjun’s heart stuttered in his chest. Jaemin quickly masked it with something indifferent and it suddenly felt awkward between them, as though Renjun had just seen something he wasn’t meant to.

Renjun cleared his throat. “You’ve got that part down now, I think.”

Jaemin nodded. “We’re perfect,” he said. “Make sure you don’t fuck it up, okay?”

Renjun might have said something about that if Jaemin hadn’t seemed so worried all of a sudden. He waited instead, because Jaemin looked like he was debating whether or not to say something and Renjun wanted to hear it, whatever it was.

Jaemin opened his mouth and then closed it again, but Renjun kept waiting.

“My parents are coming,” Jaemin said finally.

And  _ oh _ . Renjun didn’t have it in himself to mock the way Jaemin’s bottom lip withdrew into his mouth as he chewed on it, or the way the usually confident Jaemin refused to meet his eyes, fingers ghosting over the keys of the piano for something to do. Not when he understood.

Not when he understood the desperate craving of approval from people who were otherwise absent. Jaemin didn’t need to explain himself further, not when those words already said so much. And Renjun didn’t like him, but it was difficult to care more about pettiness than the empathy filling him.

Renjun nodded. “I won’t mess up, Rich Kid. You don’t have to worry.” A promise. One he intended to keep.

Jaemin smiled, strained and doubtful, but it still counted. And Renjun hoped Jaemin would do something he’d never done before and listen to what Renjun had said.

  
  


Renjun walked out of the library with five minutes to spare before his next lesson, sketchbook back at the bottom of his bag and his physics homework sitting neatly in his purple ring folder. Navigating his way out of the building was easy now, second nature to him.

“Leave me alone.”

Renjun stopped just before he turned the corner to where the stairs would be. He recognised that voice. It sounded terse, like they were gritting their teeth and their throat was closing up.

It took less time than Renjun would care to admit for him to decide what to do.

He tilted his chin up and summoned his inner Huang that had been bred into him by generations of wealth. He shoved his hands into his pockets, rolled his shoulders back and schooled his face into something disdainful as he turned the corner.

Jisung was backed into the corner of the stairwell, surrounded by three boys that were maybe an inch or two taller than him.

“Not so brave now without your protection squad, are you?” One of them sneered.

“Hey,” Renjun called out, just loud enough to gather their attention. “What’s going on here?”

All four of the year elevens turned to look at Renjun, and he met the three glares they gave with derision.

“None of your business,” the tallest said. “Fuck off, Scholarship.”

Renjun smiled at that. This kid a year younger than him could never hope to make the word sound as snotty and entitled as Jaemin could.

“No thanks,” he said, taking a step forward. “In fact, I rather think you should.”

Renjun had spent his entire life scaring off people who thought they were better than him and his friends. People at his old school who called Kunhang a servant and pretended to give him orders. People who poked fun at Dejun’s house: too big and too empty. And just because he was a little out of practice didn’t mean he’d forgotten how to do it.

“And what’ll you do if we don’t?” One of them mocked.

Renjun was a few steps above them still, looking down on them with a carefree air about him, using it to hide the anger slowly rising in his chest. He saw the name stitched onto the front of the boy’s bag. Jake Davidson.

“I don’t know,” Renjun said. “But I guarantee that you don’t  _ want _ to know.”

The tallest one scoffed. “Like you could do anything.”

Renjun’s smile didn’t falter when he met the boy’s eyes dead-on.

“Keep thinking that.”

He revelled in the way the other two balked, turning to Jake. But the tall one didn’t falter. Instead, he stepped closer to Renjun and met his gaze. Stupid.

“Then tell me,” he spat, “tell me what a pauper like you could possibly do to someone like me who can actually afford to come here and doesn’t leach off taxpayers' money.”

“I could tell you a little about yourself,” Renjun said. “I could tell you that you’re right when you think that your friends only follow you around because they like your money, not because they like you. I could tell you that bullying Jisung because you’re jealous of him doesn’t make you tough, it makes you pathetic. I could tell you that your nose is too big and your ears are too small and your haircut makes you look like a reject skater-kid from the noughties.”

Renjun revelled in the hurt that flashed across Jake’s face and how his hand came up to pat his own hair self-consciously. And maybe Renjun should have felt bad, but he couldn’t. Not when Jisung had looked so upset.

“Or maybe,” Renjun pretended to tap his chin in thought, “I should just tell Jaemin that you’ve been bothering his Jisungie.”

The three of them grew pale. As did Jisung; Renjun would ask about that later.

“Go on now,” Renjun said, shooing his hands at them with delight. “Fuck off.”

Jake spluttered, but one of his friends wrapped a hand around his wrist and made to pull him away.

“This isn’t over,” he said.

“Oh, but it is,” Renjun said blithely. He let the smile slip off his face.“You are going to leave Jisung alone or I’m not going to leave you alone and trust me, I can do far worse than some kids like you can. I don’t have a family reputation at stake.”

Renjun let the unspoken threat behind the lie linger in the air between them.

Jake opened his mouth but Renjun got there first.

“And your family really can’t take another scandal, can it?”

The look the three of them exchanged was so fearful that Renjun was reminded of how much he missed his home, where he was allowed to feel that powerful everyday.

They scampered off down the stairs, mumbling to themselves under their breath, and Renjun watched them go. He turned to Jisung, who pressed himself closer into the wall on instinct.

Renjun let the coldness that had masked his face melt into something softer, trying to mimic the way Sicheng looked at him after he’d been told off by one of their parents. He must have failed, because Jisung somehow shrunk back even further.

“Jisung?” Renjun said, trying to make his voice sound gentle. “Are you alright? What were those guys doing to you?”

Jisung opened his mouth and moved it into shapes but no noise came out.

Renjun took a chance and stepped closer, letting his hand rest on Jisung’s shoulder. Jisung went easily, and allowed Renjun to pull him into a hug.

“They’re just dicks,” Jisung mumbled.

“What did they want?”

“I’m new money,” Jisung said. “I’m new money and I’m dumb and they don’t like me because of it.”

Renjun thought about that for a moment. Thought of the new money kids back at home. “You’re right. They are dicks.” He wasn’t just talking about the three year eleven boys.

He let Jisung sniffle into his shoulder for a little longer before he spoke again.

“You want me to get Jaemin? Or Chenle?”

Jisung’s head shot up so fast he almost hit it against Renjun’s. His eyes were wide with alarm.

“No! They can’t know. Jaemin especially. He’ll be angry and I don’t want them to start up a fuss because of me.”

Renjun didn’t like that, but it was harder than it should have been to say no to Jisung.

“Please.”

“I won’t tell them.”

“Thank you.” And then Jisung went back to hugging Renjun and Renjun hated what he had just promised.

“Sungie?”

Fuck. Renjun knew that voice. A weird mix of feelings went through him, torn between Jisung’s determination to not let Jaemin know and his own want for Jisung to be okay.

“Wei? What the fuck? Get the fuck away from him!”

Renjun was pulled away forcefully from Jisung then. Jaemin took one look at the state of Jisung’s red-rimmed eyes, and how he sniffed audibly and he whirled to face Renjun, pushing Jisung behind him.

Renjun took a step back.

He had seen Jaemin angry before; he had seen him annoyed and worried and stressed and maybe even scared but never had he seen him this enraged. His eyes were downright murderous, so far beyond resentment his face was almost blank with blind rage. Renjun wasn’t scared by much, had been on the receiving end of his parents’ anger one too many times that it had lost its effect.

But Jaemin. This was something else. Something worse.

Renjun stepped back again so he was on the edge of the first step.

Jaemin’s eyes were near black when Renjun forced himself to look at him. Jaemin’s face was contorted, eyebrows pushed together, eyes narrowed, and hands curled into fists at his side.

“What did you do, Wei?” His voice was quiet but the words ran chills up Renjun’s spine and hurried his heartbeat as though they’d been shouted.

And Renjun knew Jaemin’s anger was misplaced but he kept his mouth shut. He’d made a promise, one he didn’t intend to break.

“Jaemin,” Jisung cried, latching onto Jaemin’s arm and pulling him to look at him. “He didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t try to cover for him, Jisung. He hates me enough to go after you.”

Renjun frowned at that but kept his mouth shut.

“He didn’t; I promise. He was helping me. It was some guys from my year and he got them to go away.”

Jaemin faltered at that but his anger didn’t die down.

“Who?”

Jisung didn’t look like he was going to answer, but Renjun didn’t have the same qualms about protecting their identities. He didn’t see it as breaking his promise; Jisung was the one who had told Jaemin.

“Jake Davidson and two others. Tall and ugly, all three of them.”

Jaemin turned back to look at him, and Renjun watched as his gaze hardened but Renjun didn’t take offense at that. He knew it wasn’t because of him this time.

“I’ll ruin them,” he gritted out.

Renjun didn’t doubt it.

“Please don’t,” Jisung said, tugging on Jaemin’s sleeve. “I don’t want to make such a big deal out of it.”

“It won’t be a big deal,” Jaemin promised. “It’ll be just like scraping gum off the bottom of my shoe.”

“Nana. Please.”

Renjun watched with fascination as Jaemin’s gaze instantly softened.

“I can’t just do nothing, Sungie,” he said softly, and Renjun suddenly felt like he was intruding.

“Yes, you can,” Jisung mumbled.

Jaemin shook his head and held Jisung’s hands in his. “They hurt you, Sungie. And I’m not willing to let that slide because if I do they might do it again.”

“Okay,” Jisung said. “Just don’t do anything too bad.”

“Me?” Jaemin smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Jisung smiled then, too, and his eyes were still red but Renjun was glad for it.

“Head to my room, Sungie,” Jaemin said. “Hyuck and Jeno are there. Tell them that I’ll be there in a bit and we can all play a game or go into town or whatever you want to do.”

“But I have geography,” Jisung said miserably.

Jaemin laughed lightly, but it wasn’t mocking in the slightest. “I’ll take care of it.” He pat Jisung’s head, expression nothing but fond and Renjun found himself wondering how he’d changed so quickly. “See you in a bit, Sungie.”

Jisung nodded. “Thanks, Nana.” He turned to look at Renjun then, who had otherwise thought he had been forgotten. “Thank you so much to you, too.” And then he set off down the steps, leaving Renjun alone with Jaemin.

When Jaemin turned to face him, he looked abashed. It was a new look on him. It wasn’t a bad look.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as though it pained him to do so. Renjun felt his mouth drop open and Jaemin scowled at that. “Though it did look like you’d done something.”

“I wouldn’t,” Renjun said.

Jaemin didn’t reply to that and Renjun tried not to feel hurt.

“Thank you, though.”

Renjun shook his head. “I wasn’t just going to let them do what they wanted.” He smirked then. “I don’t like it when rich kids poke fun at others about their wealth.”

Jaemin grinned at that, but it didn’t look sheepish at all. It wasn’t hostile either. Renjun didn’t know what to categorise it as.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

A beat passed.

“Jisung,” Renjun said, unable to stop himself. “What is he to you?”  _ Why did you go almost insane when he was hurt? _

Jaemin sighed and looked somewhere behind Renjun.

“He’s basically my little brother,” he said. “I was assigned to show him around and mentor him back when I was in year nine. We’re both Korean and he didn’t speak great English so I helped him out but a lot of the kids here are kind of dicks when it comes to money and assumed intelligence.”

“Like you,” Renjun interjected.

Jaemin smiled sadly. “Yeah, pretty much. But you’re an exception, Wei. The reason I don’t like you isn’t because you’re poor; it’s more to do with your personality.”

“Likewise,” Renjun said, but didn’t make an effort to fight the smile that overtook his face.

“But anyway, I kind of took Jisung under my wing because Chenle didn’t get here until last year so Jisung didn’t really have anyone else.” Jaemin shrugged, and Renjun could tell there were things he was omitting but he didn’t push for it.

Jaemin met his eyes. “Thank you, Injun.” 

Renjun didn’t like how that made him feel. It wasn’t even his real name; he shouldn’t have been so affected by Jaemin saying it.

“I owe you one.”

And then Jaemin was walking down the stairs, hands in his pockets before Renjun could see his face.

  
  


Jaemin let out a gargled scream of frustration as they conceded yet another goal.

They were losing, not horribly so, but enough that it looked as though a comeback was unlikely. Donghyuck was sick with the flu, and had been ordered to do nothing but rest so he would be in perfect shape for his solo at the Christmas concert. And even though Jaemin and Jeno had been the ones to push him into doing that, it was clear that his absence was being felt.

Their attack power had dwindled, and even Jeno was beginning to become annoyed, throwing icy glares at their teammates whenever they made a mistake.

Even Renjun, sat off to the side of the pitch, lacrosse stick laying untouched at his feet felt the bitter tension crawl into his bones as he looked at the scoreboard, and how the gap between the values kept getting wider and wider.

“Coach!” Jaemin roared out the second the opposition scored another goal.

Coach nodded, and signalled to the referee for a time out. Jaemin stomped over to the side of the pitch, the rest of the team following him. Jaemin threw his stick on the floor and seized a water bottle from the bench, shooting water into his mouth with vehemence.

“Yangyang, go wider to the left. Chenle, mark number six better or I swear to God I will steal your entire stash of chocolate milk. Hyunjin lose number eight; he’s on you too tight for us to get the ball to you. Walker.” He turned to their goalkeeper with a glower. “Do us all a favour and get the fuck out of goal and sit your arse on the bench.”

Jaemin's eyes surveyed the bench.

He jerked a thumb at Renjun. “Wei, you're up,” he said. “Get in goal.”

The faces of the team around them were just as bewildered as Renjun felt, and when he stood up, it was on shaky feet, half-expecting Jaemin to yell  _ sike  _ as he did so.

Jaemin stared Renjun down, but it lacked the heat it usually had.

“Don't get hit in the head this time.”

And then he was marching back onto the pitch without giving Renjun time to retort about how that had definitely been Jaemin's fault.

Yangyang clapped him on the back.

“Good luck,” he said. “You're gonna need it.”

It was only by some miracle that they won that game.

  
  


Renjun poked his head out from the stage wings to get a look at the hall.

It looked pretty, inviting, and warm.

Yellow lighting beaming down onto the stage, chains of paper snowflakes decorating the walls. There was a large Christmas tree in the far corner of the room, a bright gold star sitting at the top. There were strings of fairy lights lining the tops of each row of chairs, helping to illuminate the audience’s way to their seats.

It was packed, alive with laughter. Renjun’s hands started to shake, from excitement or anxiety, Renjun didn’t know. He just tried to hold them still, terrified about the prospect of shaky bow.

He recognised Mr and Mrs Na, and even if he hadn’t known about them long before he’d met Jaemin, he would’ve known who they were. Their resemblance to Jaemin and Taeyong was obvious. They had the same annoyingly perfect features, schooled into a carefully bored but haughty expression from their seats in the front row.

They already looked unimpressed with the entire affair, and Renjun glared at them even though he knew they couldn’t see him.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled his eyes away from the Na parents to look at it.

There were a series of messages from Kunhang, Dejun, and Sicheng, all wishing him luck for his performances. Renjun smiled at them, at the excessive use of emojis and how he could practically hear them all the way all the way from China.

“You ready?” Renjun turned to see Jaemin, who was clearly making an effort to not look nervous. It wasn’t working, but Renjun did him a favour and ignored it.

He, like all the other performers, was wearing all black. Dressed in a black shirt with the first two buttons undone to expose his collar bone tucked into a pair of black slacks. It was a classic look, and it suited Jaemin perfectly.

“Of course, Rich Kid,” he said, trying his best to sound confident. “We’re going to be perfect.”

Jaemin smiled at that, and looked a little like he believed it. That was enough for Renjun.

“Please welcome, to open our annual Christmas concert, Jaemin Na and Injun Wei.”

Renjun followed Jaemin onto the stage, and could see how Jaemin’s eyes found his parents in the crowd where they weren’t clapping along with the rest of the audience. Something dense dropped into his gut.

He brought his violin up to his shoulder, and tucked it under his chin. He and Jaemin both played an A, and nodded at each other when they were satisfied with the tuning.

He closed his eyes, feeling the white spotlight cast warm light over him and breathed in deeply.

He locked eyes with Jaemin and they began to play.

The ambient atmosphere the piece created was calming, almost enchanting, and Renjun was once again impressed by Jaemin’s choice. It was the perfect blend of Christmas and classical, and Renjun hadn’t grown tired of it in the slightest despite the countless number of times he had played it.

Renjun had fun with his part, making light contact between his bow and the strings of his violin. He had grown fond of his Yamaha. It was still objectively shitty compared to his actual one, because nothing could beat a Strad, but he did have some kind of nonsensical attachment to this one.

He finished his part with a flourish and a small smile, moving off into his accompaniment part.

Jaemin took to the part with the skill Renjun had come to associate with him, fingers dainty and calculated as they flit over the keys.

Renjun watched him, not needing to look at his violin for this section, not when it was so easy. He watched as Jaemin neared the end of the section, watched as his eyes moved up, away from where he’d been staring determinedly at the keyboard and into the audience.

Renjun knew what Jaemin was looking for before he found it.

Jaemin’s parents weren’t even making the effort to look like they were enjoying themselves. They looked bored, as though they found the entire thing wholly dull.

Distantly, Renjun remembered what Jaemin had said all those weeks ago.  _ Taeyong got a solo _ .

Renjun looked back at Jaemin, saw how the corners of his mouth drooped a fraction and knew what was going to happen before it did.

And just as he saw Jaemin’s long fingers tangle around themselves, before anyone else could see or hear the mistake, Renjun forced his bow against the strings of his violin too hard, dug the fingers of his left hand down on the fingerboard with enough force to skewer the sound. It was a strangled noise that came from his violin, loud enough to mask the way Jaemin tripped over the notes of his part.

Jaemin stopped playing, and Renjun did the same.

Silence for a full second before Renjun nodded, and began the bar again, face entirely neutral.

Jaemin joined in easily, focusing back on the piano. Renjun saw how carefully Jaemin watched each of his fingers flex as they pressed into the keys, how much concentration he put it.

He didn’t mess up again.

  
  


The pair of them bowed and revelled in the applause for a moment or two before turning and walking off the stage, Headmaster Moon passing them on his way to announce the next performer.

Jaemin ignored his friends when they tried to congratulate him, instead grabbing Renjun by the wrist and pulling him through a series of corridors until they came to an empty classroom without looking at him once. Jaemin used his purchase on Renjun to hurl him through the door before shutting it behind them and then switching on the light.

Renjun was surprised by just how angry he was. It was different to how it had been when he’d been angry on Jisung’s behalf, more emotional, more unhinged.

“Why did you do that?” His voice was loud, as close to shrill as Renjun had ever heard it.

“Do what?”

Jaemin growled. “Don’t lie to me, Wei. You’ve never messed that part up in your life. What the fuck happened?”

Renjun stayed silent.

Jaemin stared at him for a few moments.

“I mean, I know why you did it,” he said, and then his voice turned desperate. “But  _ why _ ?”

And maybe that didn’t make much sense, but Renjun didn’t ask. He understood the difference.

Silence settled over them, charged and Renjun didn’t dare breathe for fear of giving himself away.

Jaemin swallowed and straightened up.

Renjun saw a somber quality overcome his face, as well as some sort of realisation Renjun was both deathly curious about and didn’t want to touch.

“I owe you, Wei,” he said finally, his voice level now, with a hidden tone of something Renjun couldn’t place. “More than one. And I don’t like being indebted to people.”

Renjun might have said something to that if he’d had time to think of it, but then Jaemin had left, the door swinging shut behind him.

During the orchestra’s closing performance, Jaemin looked perfect and Renjun could barely reconcile this image of him with the one from the empty classroom earlier. He looked poised and elegant, ethereal under the white light. He didn’t fumble his playing once.

Renjun had to keep reminding himself to look at his sheet music as he played.

  
  


Renjun’s sketchbook lay open on the counter next to his finished English essay. His pencil ‒ an HB from the shop in the highstreet that did nothing in the way of helping his nuanced shading ‒ was getting worryingly short, and he wished he’d thought to buy a pack of actual art pencils with his poker winnings rather than cups upon cups of green tea. He was running out of space in his sketchbook as well, and he made a mental note to start saving up.

He’d been called into an emergency shift at the restaurant after the concert after another one of the servers had come down with an illness, and Yangyang had told him they would all wait for him to celebrate. Renjun smiled at the thought.

He was on his break now, though, with about ten minutes left before he had to get back to working.

Kun was cooking. He was the only cook in tonight because most people were on holiday, and the restaurant wasn’t exactly busy.

The door swung open, but Renjun didn’t look up, guessing that it was just one of his colleagues.

“Kun!”

Renjun’s pencil fell out of his hand, and he stared at his page, hoping his ears had been mistaken, hoping it wasn’t whom he thought it was.

“Jaemin!”

Renjun blanched, and tried to make himself as small as possible which wasn’t much considering the stool he was sitting on made him much taller than the counter he was using as a desk.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Kun said.

Renjun chanced a glance up, and saw them hugging tightly. They were both smiling.

“Sorry,” Jaemin said, “I’ve been busy.”

Renjun almost snorted. That was an understatement.

“So what brought you down tonight?”

Jamin grimaced. “Parents.”

Kun nodded, slowly, understanding. “They’re here?”

Jaemin nodded. “Right,” he said. “I’ll make sure their food is perfect.”

“Your food is always perfect.”

Kun laughed and turned back to his chopping board, resuming his dicing of an onion. “TY couldn’t make it?” The way he said it was cautious, and that told Renjun that Kun knew it was a sensitive topic.

Jaemin shook his head. “He’s even busier than I am. He sent me a text before the performance tonight, though.”

Kun nodded, and washed his hands before he pulled Jaemin into another hug, tighter this time.

“This is from him,” he said.

Jaemin laughed sadly.

He pulled away and looked around the kitchen, opening his mouth to say something but he stopped short when he saw Renjun, who was still trying to press himself into the counter.

“Wei?” he said, confused. “What are you doing here?”

Renjun sat up awkwardly and shot a look to Kun  _ help _ .

Kun seemed amused before he thought of something and quickly hurried to speak. “Injun, I know you didn’t want anyone to know, but I’m sure Jaemin won’t tell anyone else. He’s not that kind of kid.”

Renjun didn’t agree with that. In fact, he had never so passionately disagreed with something in his life. He opened his mouth to tell Kun that, but Jaemin spoke over him.

“He’s right. I won’t.” He said it so flippantly, and Renjun’s mouth dropped open as he stared at him with incredulity.

Renjun wanted to call him a liar, but couldn’t form the words in time.

“You can trust him,” Kun said. 

_ No I can’t, _ Renjun wanted to say,  _ no one fucking can or should _ .

“He’s one of the good ones I was telling you about,” Kun continued. “His brother was actually the one who leant me the money to open this place. He technically owns some part of it.”

Renjun’s mouth somehow opened wider, but he forced it closed again when he saw Jaemin smirk and raise an eyebrow.

Kun looked between the two of them and came to some sort of conclusion. He laughed. “I need to go greet your parents, Jaem,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

The door swung shut behind Kun and Renjun found his voice.

“Please don’t tell anyone‒”

“I won’t,” Jaemin said easily.

Renjun didn’t believe that and it must have shown on his face because Jaemin rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m not that much of a monster, Wei. Besides, I told you that I owe you.” Jaemin looked towards the door, through which his parents were sat undoubtedly wondering where he was. There was something forlorn about his gaze that Renjun wanted to ask about but didn’t want to cross that line.

“I won’t tell anyone. The guys at the school can be dicks about money.”

“You say that like you’re not included in that,” Renjun said, and then immediately cursed himself for it. This wasn’t the time for snappy remarks, not when Jaemin had this sort of power over him.

Luckily, Jaemin didn’t seem offended. Rather, he laughed.

“I told you; that was never about money.”

Renjun levelled him with a look.

“Okay, maybe it was a little.”

They both smiled, nothing fake about either of them and Renjun was surprised by his own sincerity.

Jaemin’s eyes moved down to the counter. Renjun followed his line of sight curiously, until he reached his sketchbook. He was half-sure he pulled a muscle with how quickly he threw it shut.

When he looked back up sheepishly, Jaemin was grinning.

“You draw, Scholarship?”

Renjun contemplated lying, but figured that the sketchbook and art supplies (however loosely he used that term) in front of him were probably dead giveaways.

“Yes,” he said curtly.

“Can I see?”

“No.”

Jaemin nodded, but his gaze lingered on Renjun’s closed sketchbook.

Silence. And then they both heard Jaemin’s name being called from the main area of the restaurant. Renjun pretended he didn’t see how Jaemin’s smile fell off his face, pretended he didn’t know that the one that replaced it was clearly fake.

“I should go,” he said. “But I mean it. I won’t tell anyone.”

Renjun nodded. “Thanks.”

Jaemin walked to the door. “Merry Christmas, Wei.”

And maybe that’s when things started changing. Or maybe they’d been changing for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/whatisanult)   
>  [cc](https://curiouscat.me/whatisanult)


	4. Chapter 4

Yangyang hugged him so tightly, Renjun was sure he had popped the majority of his bones out of their sockets. Renjun didn’t complain, though. It was nice.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Yangyang said theatrically.

Renjun laughed. “You’ll see me again in two weeks.”

“Too long,” Yangyang pretended to weep, and somehow tightened his hold on Renjun. It made it kind of hard to breathe, but Renjun didn’t care.

When he finally managed to prise Yangyang off of him, he was passed around their other friends.

Yukhei near crushed him with his hug, and his pretend tears until Jungwoo pulled him away so he could hug Renjun himself. Chenle shrieked his goodbyes directly into his eardrum and almost turned him deaf, but Renjun grinned through it all even as he pretended to be annoyed.

They would all be picked up by their own chauffers at some point during the day, but had all accompanied Renjun to the train station to bid him farewell. The thought of it made Renjun miss Yixing, but he was grateful for all of them.

When the train arrived, he carried his rucksack onto it and sat at a window seat facing out onto the platform so he could still wave to his friends. Yangyang ran along the pavement whilst waving and yelling something Renjun couldn’t understand as the train began to move.

When he could no longer see his friends, Renjun sat back in his seat and sighed.

He was going home.

  
  


He was barely fives steps out of immigration when he was tackled to the ground.

He laughed; it felt like being attacked by two massive puppies. Kunhang and Dejun were squealing in his ears, welcoming him home. And Renjun drank in the sound of his native language and his best friends’ voices not scratchy and broken over a poor internet connection but real, and right next to him.

There had been a time he couldn’t have imagined being separated from either of them for more than a day, and the reality of it had been beyond difficult.

“I missed you guys,” he said, surprised how sad he sounded.

Kunhang and Dejun pulled away to look at him.

“Welcome home, Renjunnie,” Dejun said.

And that’s what broke him. His own name. His actual name.

His best friends held him close, all three of them crying on the floor of the airport.

Sicheng mainly fussed over him when he saw his brother again for the first time in almost four months.

He held Renjun at arms’ length by the shoulders, looking him up and down and mumbling under his breath, rapid questions like _are they feeding you enough, how much sleep are you getting,_ and the such, without giving Renjun enough time to answer.

When Renjun had finally had enough, he laughed and pulled Sicheng into a hug.

“I missed you, too, brother,” he said.

Sicheng melted into Renjun’s embrace, holding him in a way that made Renjun’s heart warm in his chest.

“Come on,” Sicheng said eventually, pulling away. “I’ll treat you all to a meal.”

Renjun exchanged a look with Dejun and Kunhang. Sicheng really had missed him.

Walking down the streets of Shanghai, bustling with people and shops and fluorescent lights, didn’t feel _bad_ exactly, but it did feel strangely odd. He felt out of place, which is something he’d never felt before, not in the place he had grown up and lived all his life.

It felt too noisy, too chaotic, too crowded and Renjun didn’t know what was wrong with him all of a sudden. He knew it wasn’t the city that was wrong; it was him. He tried not to think about it too much, tried to push it to the furthest corner of his mind, tried to pretend that he was perfectly comfortable. Because this was his home, and he should have been.

So why wasn’t he?

It had been a while since Renjun had gone shopping. Proper shopping. To actual designer shops instead of charity shops to hunt for a bargain. Dejun and Sicheng insisted on paying for everything, but Renjun was once again surprised to find how hesitant he was to spend money on anything.

Every time he saw something nice, he’d stop to ask himself _is this necessary_ and most often he found the answer was _no_.

Kunhang gave him a small smile and slung an arm around his shoulder and maybe Renjun felt that, if no one else, Kunhang understood.

When they arrived back at the Huang estate, with a few paper bags each dangling from their elbows, Renjun’s assistant was waiting for him.

“Your parents wish to speak with you, Master Huang,” she said.

He looked at her for a moment and then handed his bags off to Dejun. “I’ll see you guys in a second,” he said.

He followed her down the familiar route to his father’s office, not feeling nearly as scared as he had done the last time. They paused outside the door, and she was clearly about to leave him alone, but Renjun felt guilt tug on his chest from the situation that was entirely too familiar.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For always treating you poorly. It was wrong of me.”

She blinked a few times. “Thank you,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have taken this job if I couldn’t handle a bratty rich kid.”

Renjun cracked a grin.

She inclined her head towards the door. “You shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

Renjun nodded. “Thanks.” He took a deep breath.

He knocked, and pushed the door open when he heard his mother’s voice calling out for him to come in.

Inside the office, nothing had changed. His parents were sat in the exact same way they had been last time, matching blank expressions on their faces. Renjun took a seat.

“We’ve been on the phone with Headmaster Moon,” his father said and Renjun didn’t let himself react. It didn’t surprise him that they’d been keeping tabs on him. “He informed us that, while the beginning of your career at his school got off to a rocky start, you have improved.”

“He’s impressed,” his mother continued. “He thinks we were correct to send you there.”

That gave Renjun some mixed feelings, but he didn’t comment on them.

“He thinks that you have made progress in your personal development, as well as in your academic studies.”

His mother lifted a sheet of paper from in front of her and scanned her eyes over it.

“You have been punctual with the majority of your homework assignments, and active in extracurriculars, which demonstrates great improvement from your time here. We think that it will be advantageous for you to continue your studies until the end of year thirteen, in the hopes of furthering this progress.”

And maybe the Renjun that had sat here four months ago would have said something at that, but this Renjun couldn’t muster the energy.

“If you do manage to sustain this behaviour,” his father said, “then we will consider allowing you certain privileges back, as well as offering you a chance to redeem yourself in the way of our wager with the Na’s.”

Renjun didn’t know what that meant and couldn’t find it in himself to care. He didn’t think he needed to redeem himself. Not to his parents, anyway.

“You may go now, Renjun. I think that school's good for you.”

Renjun stood up and was about to turn, but thought better of it.

“It is,” Renjun said, but it wasn't the school. It was the people at the school. “It's better for me than you ever were.”

He left before he could see his parents’ reactions. He didn’t need to know.

  
  


Renjun sipped his tea and then sighed as the hot liquid warmed him from the inside.

He, Dejun, and Kunhang were sat on the floor of his bedroom, Renjun’s favourite tea set brewing jasmine green tea in the middle of the circle they had made, and neatly wrapped presents on the floor around them.

Renjun was laughing about something he couldn’t remember, but loved the way it felt.

The entire situation felt like a dream after being so far away for so long. He’d missed these moments the most, he thought. He hadn’t missed the partying and the power over teachers and the buying whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, not really. At least, not as much as he’d missed this.

Being with the two people who would never let him down, peaceful and happy.

He hadn’t had one of these moments in a long while, and not even because of his punishment. But because he had been so desperate for attention, to disrupt and wreak havoc, and quiet moments like these didn’t do that. He hadn’t let himself do things like this for so long, to prove something to people who weren’t worth the effort.

And his friends, they had followed him despite knowing that. They had never, not once, left his side. The thought made Renjun smile and his throat go thick.

Kunhang gave him a travel-size Moomin plushie he could take with him back to England, as well as a book about aliens. Dejun had bought him a pair of studded football boots in his own size so he wouldn’t have to keep wearing ones that were too big for him now he was _“an actual member of the team who plays in actual games. My Renjunnie? Playing sports? I never thought this day would come!”_

Renjun had been apologetic about his own gifts at first, embarrassed that he hadn’t been able to afford anything of actual value but his friends had shushed him.

He gave them drawings.

Two large, A3 sketches on paper he’d stolen from the art department at school. They were portraits.

Dejun’s was from the first time the three of them had met each other, toddlers back then and copied from a grainy photo Renjun had had Sicheng send him. Kunhang’s was of them the day of their first gala, when Dejun and Renjun had bought a tuxedo for Kunhang as well and refused to go if he wasn’t allowed. They all looked like they were trying overly hard to look cool in the picture, mainly because they were, but that was Renjun’s favourite thing about it.

They both stared at their respective gifts for a long time, during which Renjun was unnecessarily anxious with the fear of disappointing them. Then they both shared a look before looking at Renjun.

“You’re drawing again, Jun?”

Renjun nodded.

Carefully, both of his friends set their presents down. Renjun didn’t have time to be worried for more than a moment before they pulled him into a tight hug.

“We’re proud of you,” Dejun whispered.

And that made Renjun’s chest contort in a way he couldn’t explain. It was rare for him to hear those words, and they always struck a chord in him but it was different ‒ better ‒ now. Now, he could believe them.

It was over all too soon.

It felt as though Renjun had just blinked and he was already back at the airport, clutching his now bigger rucksack and saying goodbye again.

He was torn between wanting to stay longer, and wanting to quickly return to his new friends in England, whom he was missing more than he’d thought he would.

It was a weird blend of emotions, but it didn’t make leaving his friends and brother behind any easier.

“We’ll see you soon, Jun.”

A promise. Renjun believed in it.

New Year's Eve passed while he was in the sky and, when he finally touched down in England, it was in 2020.

He opened the door to his room, drinking in the welcome sight of his twin bed. His two weeks back home and sleeping in his own bed had reminded him just how much nicer it was. Still, after such a long flight and too many train and bus journeys, anything horizontal with pillows looked appealing.

He was about to throw himself onto it and take a nap when he stopped himself, letting his bag slip off his shoulder and hit the floor.

On his bed sat a gift bag, and a violin case. It wasn’t his violin case, though; it was too nice, pristine, even. He walked over to them slowly, and opened the gift bag first.

Inside, was a wide tin of pencils. Not just any pencils, though. An entire range of specialist art pencils and Renjun stared at them in awe. In the rest of the bag was an A4 sketchbook, a watercolour pad, and a tin of watercolour pencils and a set of brushes.

Renjun gasped as he looked through them.

He held them softly in his hands, scared he would somehow break them. He looked wildly around the room as though he were expecting the person that gave them to him to be standing there.

At the very bottom of the bag, there was a small square of paper and Renjun pulled it out to read it.

He smiled at it. He recognised the cursive handwriting from the handwritten question cards the writer handed out at every academic decathlon practice.

 _Merry Christmas,_ it read, _I don’t know much about art but the lady at the shop said these were the best_.

Renjun laughed. They were.

He almost didn’t want to look at the second present, wanted to pretend it stopped at the top of the range art supplies. It didn’t, though. Rich kids always went all out, he’d discovered.

He finally turned to look at the violin case, to see another piece of paper resting on top of it.

 _I do know a little about musical instruments, though._ Renjun smiled. _And your Yamaha was honestly bringing down the quality of the entire orchestra._

Renjun didn’t wholly disagree with that, but found himself offended on behalf of his violin anyway.

He lifted the cover of the case and almost dropped it again when he saw it.

It was a good violin. Better than good. Hundreds of miles better than a Yamaha. Of course, nothing compared to a Strad, but everything compared to a Yamaha.

Violins were expensive; it was almost their trademark, and this one must have cost a ridiculous amount of money.

It might not have been much to Jaemin Na; it might not even have been much to Renjun Huang, but it was practically priceless to Injun Wei.

Renjun didn’t know how he felt just then, a little out of his depth, a lot confused. Mainly, though, he felt happy. Beyond that, even.

He smiled, and looked at the notes of paper, something fond melting his gaze.

  
  


Renjun ran out of the back door of the restaurant and into the cold air of the January night. He had a scrap of paper clutched tightly in his left hand as he sprinted to the only grocery shop in the town. It could barely be classified as that; it was more of a slightly bigger than normal convenience store than anything else.

Kun was stressed tonight. With the students arriving back either yesterday like Renjun had, or today, the restaurant was flooded with business as they all reunited with their friends. Kun, with his ever wonderful personality, had allowed Renjun to hide in the kitchen washing dishes and helping to plate things instead of having to go and serve his peers and give them an open avenue to mock the scholarship kid.

However, that also meant having to run out to the shop when Kun realised half-way through dinner service that their usual delivery had fucked up and they were running out of vegetables.

He pushed through the door of the shop, and began to hunt for the vegetable aisle. He was scanning the shelves, whipping his head this way and that so frantically he didn’t see the body in front of him, and walked straight into them.

“Sorr‒ oh. It’s you.”

Jaemin smiled with mock-hurt. “You don’t have to sound so disappointed, Wei,” he said.

Renjun rolled his eyes. “Would you move, Na? I’m looking for something.”

“Be my guest,” Jaemin said. He was wearing an oversized shirt and tight black jeans, hair unstyled and hanging freely over his forehead. Renjun hated that he could pull off any look.

Renjun huffed, and walked further down the aisle.

He heard footsteps behind him. “Why are you following me?” Renjun asked without turning around.

“I am also looking for something,” Jaemin said.

“What?”

“Alcohol,” Jaemin said.

“Why?”

“First night back celebration,” Jaemin said. “Sorry, were you not invited? That's my bad.” But there was no real meanness behind it.

Renjun looked at his feet to hide his smile.

“What are you looking for?”

“Vegetables,” Renjun said, rounding the corner into another aisle. “Kun’s run out so I need to get some for him.”

Jaemin nodded. He let Renjun gather the items on his list into a basket in silence, occasionally reaching out to grab something Renjun couldn’t quite reach, but not without a teasing comment about his height. It was weird, having Jaemin act this carefree around him. It wasn’t a bad weird.

When Renjun was done, the pair of them moved disturbingly naturally to the shelves of alcohol at the back. Renjun waited, watching Jaemin’s side profile as Jaemin looked over the selection.

“How are you getting away with buying this?” Renjun asked, as Jaemin shifted a large bottle of vodka into his basket. “You’re underage.”

Jaemin smiled cockily at him, pulling a wine bottle off the shelf to join his other one. Renjun eyed his choices in confusion but didn’t comment, still waiting for an answer.

“Legality is for poor people,” Jaemin said.

Renjun didn’t have an argument to that, mainly because he knew first hand that it was true.

“Did you like your presents?” Jaemin asked, seemingly blithe but Renjun knew him well enough by now to detect the slightest trace of nervousness in his tone.

“Yes,” Renjun said, because it was the truth. Jaemin let out a deep sigh of relief and Renjun resisted the urge to read into that. “And I wanted to thank‒”

“You don't need to,” Jaemin said, cutting him off. “I told you, I owe you.”

Renjun huffed out a laugh of disbelief. “Jaemin, messing up a violin recital is nowhere near equal to a fucking violin worth tens of thousands of pounds.”

Jaemin met his eyes full on then. “It is,” he said simply. “To me, it is.”

Renjun didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. Jaemin looked content and went back to browsing the shelves. Renjun let him choose his drinks in a comfortable quiet after that, ignoring the fact that he should have been rushing to get back to the restaurant.

When Jaemin seemed satisfied with his array of beverages, however mismatched they were, he let Renjun lead the way to the till, and waited behind him as the cashier scanned Renjun’s items.

“That is £17.89,” the cashier droned.

Renjun dug through his pockets, fingers wrapping around a bill. He pulled it out. Orange. £10.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. He began to search through his pockets again, for any money that could make up the missing amount. He shot an apologetic smile at the cashier, who looked incredibly unimpressed.

“What’s wrong?” Jaemin whispered from behind him.

“Kun didn’t give me enough money.”

Renjun looked up at the sound of another basket hitting the counter of the till. Jaemin was standing beside him.

“Put my items with his,” he said. “I’ll pay for both.”

The cashier shrugged, and did as he said.

“You don’t need to do this,” Renjun hissed.

Jaemin shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s technically just funding for my family’s restaurant,” he said. “Don’t take it personally, Scholarship.”

Renjun rolled his eyes to avoid thinking about the flutter in his chest. He stood there awkwardly as the cashier scanned their purchases, looking around the shop to avoid having to look at Jaemin. The cashier didn’t ask Jaemin for ID, didn’t even bat an eyelid at the alcohol he was buying.

Jaemin paid by tapping a silver debit card against the reader and picked the two plastic bags in either hand and gestured for them to leave. Renjun held the door open for him as they stepped out into the cold air. Jaemin handed him the bag of vegetables.

“Thanks,” Renjun said.

Jaemin shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

It was awkward for a moment.

“I should probably get back to the restaurant.” Renjun jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Jaemin seemed to break out of whatever reverie he’d been in and nodded. “Yeah, of course. I hope the rest of service goes well.”

“Thanks again.”

Renjun watched as Jaemin walked to where there was a bike leaning up against a railing outside the shop. He slung his plastic bag into a rucksack, and shrugged it over his shoulders.

“See you around, Injun.” And then he was pedalling off into the darkness and Renjun had to scramble back to the restaurant.

(“Where were you? I told you we are having a spring onion _emergency_ and you decided to dilly-dally?!”)

  
  


Renjun stared at his essay plan. He frowned.

What did any of this even mean?

He resisted the urge to groan for fear of waking up Yangyang where he was sleeping soundly not even two metres from Renjun’s desk. His argument was all over the place, pulled straight from thin air rather than the text, and he had no way to articulate what he wanted to say, even if his thoughts had had some value to begin with, which they didn’t.

He slumped down in his chair and rubbed harsh circles into his temples with his middle and forefingers.

His eyes moved to the small collection of gift bags, still housing his and Yangyang’s Christmas presents from their friends.

It wasn’t difficult to choose that over English. He promised himself he’d do it later, even if he knew he was lying.

He stood up and reached for the red paper bag and ruffled through it until his hand clasped around an unopened cardboard box. He crept out of the room on his tiptoes, grabbing his phone and headphones on his way out, and closed the door as quietly as he could.

It had been a week or so before the end of last term when Yangyang had told him that the kitchens at the school weren’t actually locked overnight, if you went in through the right door.

And, the right door, he had said, was the one that led into one of the storage cupboards from outside. He made his footsteps as soft as he could as he went inside. He expected the kitchen to be dark, like it had been when he’d come here with Yukhei before, but instead the lights were on and there was the faint sound of music being carried through the air.

He stepped fully out of the cupboard to see Jaemin humming softly along to a song Renjun didn’t know but liked, and stirring a pot on the stove with a wooden spoon.

He looked a little tired, in sleep clothes and swaying slightly on his feet. Renjun smiled. It was cute.

His eyes widened at his own thoughts, and he shook them from his head. Maybe he was more tired than he’d thought.

“What brings you here at two in the morning?” He called out.

He watched with amusement as Jaemin startled, almost dropping his spoon entirely into his pot before he span around, eyes wide and other hand clutching his chest. His eyes were fiery but then melted into something softer when he realised who Renjun was.

He turned back around, continuing to stir. “You scared me.”

“Really?” Renjun walked over to where Jaemin was standing. “I couldn’t tell by the way you nearly jumped out your skin.”

Jaemin stuck his tongue out at him, and it startled a laugh out of Renjun with how childish it was.

“Real mature,” he said.

“It’s all part of my charm,” Jaemin smiled.

Renjun sniffed the air. The aroma from the Jaemin’s saucepan was warm, a little gingery, and pleasant.

“Smells good. What’re you cooking?”

“Broth porridge mixture thing” Jaemin said.

Renjun squinted his eyes at him.

“I don’t have a better name for it, sorry. It’s my own recipe.”

“And you were just suddenly craving it at two in the morning?”

Jaemin shook his head. “Jeno’s sick,” he said, looking down. “I’ve made this for him everytime he was sick since we were like seven.” He smiled to himself. “I used to have to stand on a stall so I could reach.”

And Renjun’s mind was overtaken by the image of a seven year old Jaemin with a toothy grin standing on a wooden stool with a determined look on his face as he stirred a pot with a too-big spoon.

“Honestly, I’m surprised you even know how to use a stove, Rich Kid.” Because Renjun certainly didn’t. “Don’t you have servants and the like to do that for you?”

He managed to disguise his curiosity as playful teasing, and Jaemin took it in his stride.

“My parents wanted me to learn ‘life skills’. They had me learn to cook, golf, and needlepoint.”

“All essential in everyday life,” Renjun said sagely.

Jaemin laughed, and Renjun instructed his heart to stop beating so loudly where Jaemin might hear.

“Do you know where the kettle is?”

Jaemin used his spoon to point over to the side of the kitchen.

“Why?”

Renjun lifted the box in his hand so Jaemin could see it and shook it a little for effect. “Yangyang got me some of my favourite tea for Christmas, so I thought I’d come and brew myself a cup.”

Jaemin raised an eyebrow and echoed Renjun’s own words from earlier. “At two in the morning?”

Renjun turned to walk to the kettle, filling it with water. “It was either this or write that essay for Williams.”

Jaemin nodded with understanding obvious in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to say more but Renjun was glad when he didn’t.

They both listened to the music for a minute or so as the kettle boiled.

“Is Jeno okay?” Renjun asked, pouring the boiling water into a mug he’d found in one of the cupboards.

“He’ll be fine,” Jaemin said. “But when he gets ill, he gets whiny and he won’t go to sleep until I give this to him. It’s just the sniffles I think, but I didn’t want to wake Hyuck up and ask for his help when he’s got rehearsals tomorrow.”

Jaemin sounded nonchalant, but he had clearly been up for a while, and was still standing in the school kitchens this late at night, preparing for more hours of looking after his friend by himself. And that made an unfamiliar feeling spread in Renjun’s chest.

“You really care about them. Jeno and Donghyuck,” Renjun said, something like awe in his voice.

“They’re my brothers,” Jaemin shrugged, and turned to face the stove again, but Renjun could see how his ears turned red.

Renjun sipped at his tea, and relished the taste of it against this tongue, and the warmth of it down his throat. He noticed Jaemin staring at him and grew self-conscious. He proffered up the mug.

“You want a cup?”

Jaemin blinked a few times and then nodded. “Yes. Please.”

Renjun poured another cup and put it down on the side of the counter next to the stove, leaning back against it himself.

Jaemin took a sip of the tea. The smile that overcame his face was nothing short of breathtaking.

“I can see why it’s your favourite.”

Jaemin cooked and Renjun drank in silence. The music Jaemin was playing ‒ whatever it was ‒ was calming, and Renjun found himself tapping his foot along to it.

There was something surreal, removed, about this entire situation. The kitchens felt like some distant realm, disconnected from the rest of the world. 

Renjun thought that he would probably stay there forever, if he could. He had grown to like the quiet.

He jolted out of his thoughts when he heard Jaemin turning the stove off. Jaemin’s mug was empty, and he was pouring the broth porridge mixture thing into a white ceramic bowl.

He watched as Jaemin rinsed out and washed the pan he had been using, leaving it to drip soapy water onto the drying rack.

Jaemin also rinsed out the mug his tea had been in and set it on the side.

“Want to take a cup for Jeno?”

Jaemin smiled softly and Renjun felt his heart become light. “I think he’d love that.”

Renjun nodded and hummed in response, turning to boil the kettle again. He ignored the voice in his head that told him he’d only offered to make this moment last a little longer, and instead focused on making the tea.

He held it out for Jaemin to take it, relishing the way their fingertips brushed as the mug got passed over.

“Thank you,” Jaemin said.

And a few weeks ago, Renjun had thought that a sincere Jaemin Na was something impossible. That Jaemin expressed himself in mocking taunts and sarcasm without the capacity of anything else. But, in this moment, detached from the rest of the world, there was not a single other word that could describe him.

“See you around, Wei,” Jaemin said as he carried the bowl and mug out of the kitchens. He paused just before he could get the whole way through the doorway and looked back at Renjun. “If you ever need help with an essay, feel free to ask.” And then he left.

“See you, Na,” Renjun said to the empty kitchen.

  
  


Renjun entered the common room and panned his eyes around the space, searching for a friend he could sit with. He was utterly shattered, having stayed up all night to finish his stupid English essay. He’d had a renewed energy when he’d arrived back to his room last night, but the prospect of work had promptly sucked all of that out of him and now he felt like a dead man walking.

He saw Jeno sitting at a table and, perhaps for the first time since Renjun had met him, he was alone. His table was covered in books and he was scrawling furiously onto a sheet of paper.

Renjun walked over to his table and flopped himself down into the seat beside him.

Jeno looked up, eyes wide, but it quickly turned into a smile.

“Injun,” he said, “hi!”

Renjun smiled back; it was an automatic reaction to interaction with Jeno, he was finding.

“I heard you were ill,” he said. “You feeling better?”

Jeno grimaced. “A little. But I couldn’t miss today, I have a sociology test. Thanks for the tea last night, by the way. It was really nice.”

Renjun grinned. “Thank Yangyang; he bought it.”

There was a loud voice, and Renjun and Jeno’s heads turned simultaneously to see Jaemin yelling at a bunch of year sevens for coming into the common room when they weren’t allowed.

The pair of them sighed in sync.

He could feel Jeno turn to continue their conversation, but Renjun kept his eyes on Jaemin.

“He used to hate me, too, you know?” Jeno said suddenly.

Renjun’s mouth fell open. He looked at Jeno, then back at Jaemin, then at Jeno again. Jeno badly suppressed his laughter.

“No fucking way,” Renjun said. “You’re lying.”

Jeno shook his head, still laughing.

“He made you broth at two in the morning!”

Jeno’s eyes folded into half-moons. “Yeah,” he said fondly, looking over at Jaemin, “he did, didn’t he?”

“There’s no way Jaemin has ever hated you a day in his life. You guys have been best friends since you were toddlers.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Jeno insisted. “You see, our families are really close right? And my older brother is his brother’s best friend, so they wanted us to follow in their footsteps or whatever. And you’ve probably noticed this about Jaemin, but he kind of hates doing what he’s told.”

Renjun snorted. That was an understatement. Jeno gave him a reprimanding look, but it lacked heat.

“Anyway, he really hated me just because he felt like it was the opposite of what everyone wanted him to do. He wouldn’t share his toys with me and he’d pretend he couldn’t hear me if I spoke.” Jeno laughed, and that confused Renjun because he definitely didn’t think that was something to laugh about.

“I mean, obviously he got over it eventually when we were like five, but I still had to go through all of nursery and reception with him hating me which wasn’t exactly fun. Like, imagine Jaemin as he is now, but with bigger teeth and even less impulse control.”

Renjun touched the healed-over bump on his forehead. Jeno saw and smiled.

“That’s the thing about him, I think,” Jeno said, not quite meeting Renjun’s eyes. “He’s ferociously stubborn and he feels too strongly. But that stubbornness becomes ferocious loyalty in the blink of an eye and I don’t think he even makes that decision consciously. He and Hyuck used to not like each other because they were too similar and now all three of us are joined at the hip.”

Renjun thought about his own friends, and how different they were compared to Jeno and his lot. There had never been dislike between him and Dejun and Kunhang, but they’d still ended up in the same positions as Jeno and Jaemin and Donghyuck.

He thought that was pretty cool.

“I know he seems very blasé and like he doesn’t care about anyone but himself a lot of the time,” Jeno said, “but he actually cares a little too much.”

Renjun nodded, because he’d learnt that much for himself.

“He got me through my parents’ divorce,” Jeno said lightly, as though he hadn’t just dropped a huge bombshell.

Renjun wanted to interrogate him further, but it was clear Jeno didn’t want to develop further on that so he refrained.

“Me too,” he said. “My parents. They’re not divorced but they should be. It’s like they’re separated but still living under the same roof.” When they could be bothered to come home.

Jeno nodded. “Everyone here’s a little broken and trying to fix themselves with money, Injun.”

 _Me too_ , Renjun thought, _before._

Jeno looked Renjun right in the eyes then, and it was the most serious Renjun had ever seen him, none of his usual happy charm present.

“I know you hated him before and I don’t know how you feel about him now, but Jaemin is my best friend. I get that he can be mean because I was on the receiving end of that, too. But you’re smart, Injun.”

“I don’t hate him anymore,” Renjun said. It was the first time he’d admitted it to himself, let alone out loud, but the words came naturally to him, as though they’d been waiting to be said for a long time. “I’m not sure if I can say I like him, but I think I understand him a little more. I think I understand myself a little better as well.”

Renjun held Jeno’s gaze for a few moments before Jeno nodded and his normal smile stretched over his face.

“I’m glad to hear that, Injun,” he said. Jeno looked at his watch. He stood up and began gathering his things into his bag. “I have to go, but I’m happy I got to speak with you. I hope I’ll be seeing you around a little more?”

Renjun nodded. “Definitely.”

  
  


Mr Jones laid Renjun’s test paper on his desk without looking at him.

_A*_

Renjun grinned, and turned to look at Yangyang, who met him with his own beaming smile, holding up his own sheet of paper with _A_ written across the top.

“I’m disappointed, Mr Na,” Jones said, and Renjun’s head whirled to face Jaemin’s desk with such force he felt his neck click.

Jones was stood over Jaemin’s desk, hand still pinning his paper to the desk. Jaemin was refusing to meet his eyes, but Renjun didn’t need to see his face to know how he was feeling, because he could feel the embarrassment radiating off of him in waves. The entire class was watching the exchange in silence, and Renjun would have told them all to look away and mind their own business if he hadn’t been doing the same, just as curious.

“I expected better from Taeyong’s brother.” Renjun felt the words hit him square in the chest like a blunt force. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for Jaemin. “I find myself somewhat surprised you’re related.”

The cold shock that enveloped the classroom was overwhelming. The class sat in a stunned silence, terrified to make a noise. Their classmates all seemed to be holding their breath, too scared to risk it, risk choking on the thick tension that swarmed through the room as palpable waves.

Renjun could see the way Jeno’s face darkened over like a storm cloud, and knew that the same sentiment was reflected on his own face as protectiveness curled like a beast in his gut.

Each one of them was watching Jaemin, waiting for the storm they knew was coming.

Jaemin was quiet, unearthly so. His face was calm and collected, the same sort of dangerous anger Renjun had come to learn was his most vicious.

He waited in apprehension, waited for Jaemin to tear into Jones with everything he had, rip him to shreds with carefully chosen words like no one else could even attempt to do.

Jaemin’s knuckles turned white where he was gripping the sides of his desk.

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll try harder next time.”

Renjun felt the class’ collective gasp of shock ripple through him, too. Saw it on Jeno’s face, confused and still angry as he watched Jones traipse back to his desk at the front of the classroom.

Jaemin didn't look up again that entire lesson, even as Renjun stared at him, willing him, hoping that he would be able to bring him consolation with his gaze where he couldn't tell him with his words.

But Jaemin stared resolutely at his test paper, not moving until the end of the lesson when Jeno placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him up with a tight lipped smile and without a word.

Renjun could see Jaemin give Jeno a struggled, strained smile, before standing and leaving the room. Renjun wanted to walk after them but stopped himself. He didn’t want to make things worse.

Every time Renjun saw Jaemin in again that day, he looked worryingly fine. Composed as usual, he answered questions in class, and attended his clubs and made jokes.

It was only when he thought no one was looking that his façade would break for a fragment of a moment, slip slightly to reveal the cracks where his hands shook and his eyes looked dull and empty.

But Renjun was always looking.

It was scary, how much this shell of Jaemin resembled the real one.

Renjun couldn’t sleep that night.

It felt like something had crept beneath his skin, making him uncomfortable no matter what position he slept in. Like there was an itch he couldn’t scratch just below the surface of his skin. It was after about an hour of tossing and turning and scrolling pointlessly through his phone that he gave up. He hauled himself to his feet, gathered his new sketchbook and pencils Jaemin had given him from under his bed, tucked them under his arm, grabbed his phone, and left his dorm room.

He headed for the library, his sort of sanctuary during sleepless nights and aimless days.

He climbed the stairs to the balcony, and stopped when he heard a voice. He couldn’t make out the words, all mumbled and indistinguishable.

He crept along one of the bookshelves, pressing himself close against it so he was hidden in shadow. In the middle of the aisle there was a gap in between this bookshelf and the next one along. From it there was a warm yellow light and he followed it, moving towards it with a strange sort of curiosity.

When he reached the end of the shelf, he peeked his head around the corner to be met with the sight of Jaemin, sitting a little way down the next aisle over on the floor and leaning against another bookshelf with his knees pulled up and a large textbook resting on them. He was muttering under his breath as he read frantically, and Renjun felt his heart ache at the sight.

He contemplated what to do, unsure if Jaemin would prefer to be left alone. In the end, his own selfishness to make sure Jaemin was alright won out.

“Jaemin?”

Jaemin’s head shot up too quickly.

His eyes were red, and even the low light of the reading lamp he was using was enough to expose the thin, shiny tracks running down either side of his cheeks. He rubbed harshly against his eyes when he saw Renjun, and tried for a smile.

Renjun appreciated the effort, even if it looked endlessly sad.

Jaemin’s hair was messy, strands tangled like they’d been grabbed and held in fists, pulled at. He looked like he’d been caught doing something horribly incriminating.

“What are you doing here?” Renjun asked, keeping his voice as gentle as he could.

Jaemin cleared his throat and held up the book so Renjun could see the front cover. _The Entire History of the Russian Revolution_.

“Light reading?”

“Revising for history.”

Renjun felt himself frown. “Jaemin, we don’t have exams again until May.”

Jaemin shrugged and averted his eyes. “Can’t help to get ahead.”

Renjun observed him. “Yes, it can.”

It was silent for a few moments as Jaemin refused to meet his eyes.

“Do you want to tell me the real reason you’re studying for a test you don’t have at three in the morning?”

Jaemin did look up then, and Renjun felt his stomach drop when he saw that Jaemin’s eyes were shiny.

“You saw what happened today. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

It was obvious he was making an effort to sound scornful, but it was betrayed by how strained it was. It sounded as though each word was grating against the inside of his throat before it made it into the air between them.

“You want to talk about it?”

Jaemin sobbed then. Renjun’s eyes went wide, alarm flaring in his mind. Jaemin choked on his breath, took in a shallow breath before he pushed it out again almost immediately afterwards. The sound was dreadful, raw and untamed.

Renjun couldn’t think of what to do, so he let instinct take over. He crossed over to where Jaemin was and slunk down next to him, carefully placing an arm around Jaemin’s shoulders and pulling him into a tight hug. Jaemin was shaking as he struggled to take in air, and Renjun tried to regulate his own breathing as best he could to help coax Jaemin into copying his pattern, even as the sight of the usually cocky Jaemin Na crying on the floor tore at him from the inside.

Jaemin sniffed loudly, and looked up, still breathing heavily. He used his sleeve to wipe away the tears and the snot, looking embarrassed.

And, Renjun thought, despite the blotchiness and the bloodshot eyes and the puffiness, Jaemin was still beautiful. He wondered when that thought had begun to fill him with awe rather than bitterness.

Renjun reached up with a shaky thumb to wipe the tears from beneath Jaemin’s eyes.

Jaemin laughed. But it was wrong, acidic.

“Why are you here?” He said, and it sounded so dejected Renjun felt his heart fracture.

“I wasn’t going to leave you alone.” Renjun was surprised by how firm he sounded.

“We're not even friends, Wei,” Jaemin said. His voice broke.

“Exactly. So you can talk to me. It’s more difficult to open up to people you’re closer to, I know.”

Jaemin pressed his lips into a thin line. He stared at Renjun for a long time, and Renjun met his gaze as best he could. There was a strange emotion in Jaemin’s eyes. Something Renjun hadn’t seen before.

Jaemin looked like he wanted to say something, and Renjun was torn between urging him on and letting him take his time. But then there was an emotion Renjun could identify on Jaemin’s face: insecurity and doubt. Fear.

“Is it about what Mr Jones said? About your brother?” Renjun prompted.

Jaemin’s gaze almost entirely cleared up before it clouded over with emotion again. He nodded stiffly.

“It was a dick thing for him to say. You shouldn’t be compared to your brother; there’s no way he was that amazing.”

Jaemin snorted, the sound wet and disgusting. “Well, you've never met him, Injun, but there's a reason everyone always calls him perfect.” He looked away, at the shelf opposite them. He stretched his legs out so they were flat against the floor, the space just wide enough for him to do so. “He was head boy, and captain of everything, and talented and kind and good looking,” Jaemin listed. “It’s inevitable that I’m compared to him, even though everyone knows it’s impossible for me to match up.”

He sniffed again. “He’s the perfect son. So, naturally, they look to me and expect to see something at least close to him, and they’re disappointed when they see just how different we are.”

He scoffed but the sound was pained.

“I’m just so useless, Injun.”

The words hung in the air. Shattered shards of self.

Renjun wanted to protest against that, insist that Jaemin wasn’t, but couldn’t find the words to get across just the magnitude of how he felt about it.

“Especially compared to Taeyong. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. Everything is just so difficult and I’ve spent so long feeling so stupid and it sucks.”

Jaemin’s breathing was starting to get faster again, his voice climbing in volume.

“And I thought, if I did well in my GCSE’s then I’d prove that I’m smart and I’m just as good as Taeyong, but that didn’t happen because no one even fucking cared because Taeyong did it first so what did it matter?” His voice was forceful now, strong and angry. Still, Renjun thought, this was better than the dismay of earlier.

“It’s this stupid expectation of perfection that makes the mundane seem awful and the amazing seem average and I’m not made for it.” Another sob, but Jaemin spoke through them ‒ a hint of that determination that defined the Jaemin Renjun knew. “And now I’m stuck with subjects I don’t care about, managing clubs for the sake of it and almost killing myself trying to live up to an impossible legacy.” He slammed his fist into the floor. And his voice turned desperate. “Why did he have to be so perfect? Why…”

He trailed off, overtaken by a new bout of sobbing.

Renjun only caught pieces of the breathy words Jaemin forced out as he cried, but they were enough to break his heart.

“Why am I not good enough? I can’t do this. I’m not him.”

He turned to Renjun, pain so clear in his eyes it shot it right through Renjun’s bones.

“It’s all I have, Injun Being his brother. It’s all I am. And I can try to separate myself from him as much as possible; I can ignore his calls and forbid anyone from saying his name around me but it’s all anyone thinks of when they think of me. And I tried being someone else and making a name for myself but everything I do, Taeyong did it first and he did it better.

“All I have is being second best. And that’s all I’m ever going to be.”

He started crying again, unable to speak, hiding his head between his knees as he pulled them closer to his body. Renjun watched in silence.

Jaemin had just become a real person, right in front of his eyes. This cocky, untouchable, self-assured figure that had made Renjun angry with envy had been stripped away to reveal an actual human being. An actual, real life, breathing person with insecurities and anxieties wrapped up in lies and pretences.

Because, up until that very moment, Renjun had thought that Jaemin was pretty perfect, too. The richest. most powerful person in the school, with more badges and trophies and achievements than he could count. The second, perfect son of the Na family whom Renjun’s parents wished he was more like.

And now, Renjun knew he was perfect.

“I don’t think of you as Taeyong’s brother,” Renjun said, keeping his voice unyielding so Jaemin couldn’t argue, but also flippant so Jaemin wouldn’t think he was lying. He needed Jaemin to believe this. He trained his gaze on the spine of the blue book opposite it.

“I think of you as a lot of things. You’re a twat for one.”

Jaemin snorted. Renjun let his eyes shift momentarily to Jaemin and smiled.

“But you’re also that kid that marched up to me on my first day with the sole objective of making me feel poor.”

“That wasn’t why‒”

Renjun shushed him. “And you’re the guy who chucked a lacrosse ball at my head and gave me a concussion. But you’re also the person who never told anyone ‒ not even his best friends ‒ that I have a job. And you’re the person who really sucked at vectors at the beginning of the year but worked so hard on them that you won the decathlon with a question on them.

“And you’re the person who bought me stupidly expensive Christmas gifts even though we’re not friends. And you’re the person who paid for my vegetables without making fun of my wealth. And you’re the person who will go out in the cold in the middle of the night to make broth for your sick friend.

“There’s not just the things you do, though,” Renjun continued. He didn’t think he could stop, “it’s also all the things you are. You’re stubborn. You’re intelligent and you’re impulsive but you’re also calculating and persistent. And you can be infuriating but you can also be calming and kind.

“You’re a lot of things, Jaemin. And Taeyong’s little brother is just one of those. You can’t let it define you, not when there are so many other words that describe you better.”

Renjun let those words sit in the air, for a moment worried that he’d been too genuine, too honest with his feelings. He hadn’t himself known what he was going to say, and hoped Jaemin could hear his sincerity. It was a long, unadulterated ramble, all messy and confusing but he hoped Jaemin understood.

And it seemed he did, because Jaemin smiled. He threw his head back against the shelf, and Renjun did the same.

“Thanks, Injun,” Jaemin said, his voice barely audible even in the quiet of the deserted library.

“I’ve never thought of you as Taeyong’s little brother.” An affirmation. A truth. “You’re your own person. And a pretty good one at that. When you aren’t being a raving dickhead.”

Jaemin laughed, a little hysterical. But that was enough for Renjun. Jaemin’s head landed on Renjun’s shoulder, and Renjun tried to keep his heartbeat steady.

“That doesn’t change how others see me, though. Does it?”

He sounded like a child, afraid of the answer.

And Renjun wanted to say _yes_ , to take away Jaemin’s pain. But he couldn’t lie to him. Not more than he already was. 

He shook his head.

“But as long as _you_ know,” he said, “that’s the only thing that matters.”

“I think there are a few other people who matter.”

Renjun hummed. It was quiet between them for a few moments.

“It might take me a little while. To fully accept it.”

“I’ll be here to remind you,” Renjun promised. “And until you do, I’ll help you out with whatever I can.”

“Maths?”

Renjun nodded. “ I can do maths.”

“I can’t just leach off of you for academic and emotional support without giving you anything in return, though. Let me help you with something. English? Lacrosse?”

“You don’t have to make it even. Let’s stop keeping score. That’s not the proper way to sustain a friendship.”

“Friendship?” Jaemin’s voice was small.

Renjun tilted his head down to see that Jaemin had angled his head so he could look up at Renjun without moving off of his shoulder. Jaemin looked at him through his lashes, teardrops resting on them, too exhausted both physically and mentally to try to mask the hope laying behind his eyes.

Renjun’s heart stuttered in his chest.

He took Jaemin’s hand in his and intertwined their fingers.

“Friendship.”

  
  


When Renjun had arrived in England for the first time, his relationship with Jaemin had been simple: rivals. The second time he’d landed on English soil, it had been far more complicated. They had hovered around in this strange place between enemies and acquaintances for a few weeks, lingering between unspoken care and confusing feelings.

Now it was more definite, and Renjun couldn’t have been gladder for it.

Friends.

The word made him smile and think of Jaemin.

His other friends all said they’d noticed some difference in him. Sicheng had told him that he sounded happier now, and Renjun didn’t try to deny it because he was. While hating Jaemin had been satisfying in its own way, nothing could compare to having him as a friend.

Jaemin was thorough in how he taught English and led the decathlon team and brutal in how he coached lacrosse.

He hurled lacrosse balls at Renjun at a terrifying velocity, shouting out tips about how to watch the trajectory of the ball and to stand on the balls of his feet for a quicker reaction time.

But mostly, the pitch was filled with laughter whenever they trecked down to train.

Jaemin’s laugh was still closer to a cackle, but it was more affectionate now, like he’d shed the layer of ice that had coated it before. Renjun laughed a lot, too. Deep laughter that bubbled up from his stomach and wracked through his entire body.

They won their seventh and eighth games of the season without Renjun being put on the bench once.

“Literally how is this wrong?”

Renjun chuckled under his breath at the offended look on Jaemin’s face.

“You need to resolve in the direction of motion.”

“I did that!” Jaemin squawked indignantly.

Renjun tapped the page with his pen. “It’s different for A and B, though.”

Jaemin let out a loud groan and flung himself back in his chair, throwing his pen down. “I give up. This is basically physics, anyway; why is it in the maths course?”

Renjun shrugged and pulled Jaemin by the shoulders to sit properly at the desk.

“You’re not giving up, Rich Kid,” he said. “Try again.”

Jaemin huffed but picked his pen back up anyway.

A side-effect of being friends with Jaemin, was being friends with Jaemin’s friends and Renjun’s friends being friends with both Jaemin and Jaemin’s friends.

They took up an entire table at the canteen together when they’d first decided to try it. It was almost impressively awkward as the only person who looked truly happy about it was Jisung.

They’d sat in uncomfortable silence, only Jisung, Jaemin, and Renjun really talking and even that conversation was stiff. Until, finally, Donghyuck had grown bored of the animosity and challenged Yangyang to an arm wrestle. Renjun had been skeptical that that would do anything but make it worse, but a look from Jaemin had told him not to question it.

Yangyang and Donghyuck, it seemed, bonded over the wrestling match as neither had won, and that had somehow opened the floodgates to friendship for them all.

Renjun was bewildered, but didn’t make the mistake of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

After that, it was weird how easily the two groups merged. They joked and they told stories and it was like the rift between them had never even existed.

Renjun was happier for it. Life was less hassle when he didn’t have to worry about being mean.

Sometimes, usually when Jaemin called him _Scholarship_ and Renjun was hit by the nauseous waves of guilt that came with lying, Renjun would remember that this was supposed to be a punishment.

He remembered how much he’d hated the idea of it, how much he’d cried and begged to not have to go.

The thought would make him laugh quietly to himself. 

If he couldn’t rebel in the more traditional sense, he supposed that the next best way to stick it to his parents was to just enjoy the supposedly most horrible thing they could dream up for him.

So that’s what he did.

  
  


The first round of the National Academic Decathlon was held in a hall in Maidstone.

It was stuffy, nowhere near as spacious as the hall at Chaucer, and Renjun joined his teammates in wrinkling his nose when they stepped inside.

Jaemin looked every bit the heir he was, hair styled sleekly and uniform crisp. He led them to their seats looking down his nose at their competitors. Renjun did the same. None of their competition knew him as a scholarship kid, so he could act every bit as haughty and rich as he had back in China. It felt like flexing a muscle he hadn’t used in a while.

Jaemin had said that intimidation was an important psychological factor of winning. Renjun said it was just an excuse for Jaemin to exercise his power over a new set of people. Jaemin hadn’t denied it.

They took their seats and Renjun tuned out during the welcome speech, given by an official from the decathlon’s board. Jeno, Mark, and Jungwoo were the only ones from their team making an effort to look like they were paying attention, the rest of them were lounging in their chairs, hands in their pockets and looking distinctly bored. The difference made Renjun want to laugh.

When they finally announced they were about to start, Donghyuck muttered, “finally,” under his breath and then looked proud when Renjun had to suppress a snort.

Jaemin won the coin flip, looking wholly too cocky about a game of chance.

Renjun felt himself shift into the competitive mindset easily, meeting Jaemin’s eyes for a brief moment. They shared a look of anticipation, and Renjun felt that competitive flame come alive in his gut.

The game began.

When they left the stuffy hall, the night air was cool and Jaemin had a trophy gripped tightly in his hand.

  
  


If Renjun had thought being rivals with Jaemin had been exhausting, being his friend was even more so.

A day Jaemin sat with them at lunch, or had time to hang out with them after school or even on the weekends was so rare it was a celebratory occasion.

He asked Donghyuck about it, only to receive a long-suffering sigh and, “he’s a fucking idiot,” as an explanation.

When they hadn’t been friends, Renjun had been happy to go through the day without seeing Jaemin once, but now they were, it left him with some gaping hole in his chest he couldn’t quite explain.

“Hey, Jaemin?”

Jaemin hummed, not looking up from his history essay.

“Wanna do some lacrosse practice tonight?”

Jaemin looked up. “Sorry, Injunnie.” Renjun had to try very hard to ignore what the nickname did to his heart. “I’ve got so much to do.” He let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sure Jeno or Hyuck will practise with you if you asked them?”

Renjun forced a smile. “It’s fine. I’ll do something else.”

It felt like, the closer Renjun got to Jaemin, the less he saw him. He had to schedule in time with him like Jaemin was a businessman rather than his friend.

“He’ll always drop whatever he has to do if you tell him it’s important,” Jeno said, a little sadly. “And he’ll never make you feel like a burden for it. But then he’ll still push himself to complete what he had to do and you’ll see him the next day trying to pretend like we can’t see the bags under his eyes and like we don’t know him well enough to tell that his smiles are fake.”

Jeno sighed, and let Donghyuck take over.

“It always gets worse as the year goes on, as well.” Jeno nodded in agreement. “Because he starts getting even busier and he starts sleeping less and he starts to disappear and he never listens to us.”

Renjun’s friends had never been like that. Maybe he and Jaemin could have been more similar if Renjun hadn’t given up on getting his parents’ approval long ago, but as it was, Renjun had never sacrificed his own wants for his parents’ and it wasn’t something he was ashamed of.

His friends had been much the same, available whenever he wanted to spend time with them as he was for them. He’d never needed to be penciled in before.

It made him equal parts irritated and worried.

Because he craved attention, and Jaemin wasn’t giving him any but also because Jaemin was stretching himself beyond thin to meet expectations he knew himself were ridiculous and impossible and Renjun just couldn’t understand _why_.

Neither Donghyuck or Jeno had an answer either, and, when Jaemin rejected him again that night to make history flashcards, Renjun decided he’d had enough.

  
  


The library was dark. The quiet before the storm.

Renjun knew Jaemin was here somewhere, pouring over his history notes instead of playing Monopoly with the rest of their friends. It was easy enough to find him by way of tracking the only light source, the yellow gleam bending around the corners of the bookshelves.

Jaemin was sitting at a circular table at the end of one of the aisles, one finger tracing his place in a large textbook and the other gripping a pen and using it to write frantically on a lined, white flashcard. He had airpods in, and didn’t look up as Renjun approached.

There was a window behind him, casting a white light over the softer yellow one and Renjun took a moment to appreciate the way it made his face glow.

He tapped Jaemin on the shoulder and hated how much Jaemin jumped before his expression turned into something surprised but pleased.

“Wei,” he said. He moved some of his books away across the table in an invitation for Renjun to join him. Renjun did so, sitting down. “What brings you here? Shouldn’t you be playing Monopoly?”

Renjun smiled and hoped it didn’t look as pinched as it felt.

“I should be. So should you.”

Jaemin shook his head and looked back at his notes.

“I should be finishing these.”

“You can finish them later,” Renjun said simply, because it was simple.

He couldn’t understand why Jaemin looked at him like it was impossibly difficult.

“You know I can’t do that, Injun.”

“Yes, you can.”

It was silent as Jaemin wrote a sentence. Renjun watched the ink leak into the card to form words about a topic he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand.

“What’s the big deal?” He tried. “You told me that you knew it was stupid to aim for perfection. So why are you still doing it?”

Jaemin thought for a long time, and Renjun could tell he was having trouble phrasing what he wanted to say.

“You wouldn’t get it,” he said finally. “Perfection is what’s expected of me, and I can’t just not be it anymore.”

 _I think you’re perfect no matter what_ , Renjun thought but he didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “no one can be perfect all the time.”

That was a mistake.

Jaemin’s eyes darkened. “Taeyong can. Taeyong _is_.”

“Stop comparing yourself to him.” It was a little pushier than he’d intended.

“No one else will, so I won’t either.”

“I already told you that’s not true.” Renjun didn’t try to stop the irritation from seeping into his voice.

“And I told you that might take a while.” Jaemin responded in kind.

They glared at each other for a long moment, and not even the soft light of the library in the small hours of the morning could mask the steely nature of Jaemin’s glower.

“Why can’t you just support me in what I do instead of trying to change me?”

Renjun scoffed and tried to think of a way to reply to that other than _because I care about you and when you hurt yourself it hurts me, too_ because that would be too real and Renjun was scared of being too truthful when he lived wrapped in a lie.

“Because being your friend is exhausting, Jaemin.”

The insecurity that appeared on Jaemin’s face was gone so quickly Renjun was half-sure he’d imagined it. He stood up, and started to shove his things into his bag.

“Well I’m sorry that not all of us can be nobodies from nowhere, Wei,” he spit out the words like they tasted foul in his mouth. “Some of us have names to live up to.”

And maybe it Renjun had been a better person, maybe if he hadn’t been terrified by the risk of losing his name and becoming a nobody, maybe if he’d heard the desperation beneath Jaemin’s voice and realised that Jaemin’s words came from a place of self-doubt and not cruelty, Renjun wouldn’t have said what he said next.

But Renjun was angry and he was in pain and he heard those words and took them as they were. And he lashed out.

“You'll never be Taeyong, Jaemin,” Renjun shouted and instantly wished he hadn't. Wished he could swallow the words before he had spoken them, wished he could leave them as ugly thoughts in a far part of his brain, wished he could pluck them out of the air before they ever reached where Jaemin stood.

The hurt on Jaemin's face was so obvious Renjun felt it strike like a blade into his own chest.

“I don't want to be,” he gritted out, but his voice broke.

“Jaemin‒”

But Jaemin had already stormed away, leaving the light of his hideaway and disappearing into the shadows.

  
  


“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” Renjun muttered, pressing his phone harder against his face, pacing up and down the abandoned rows of the library.

The line connected and Renjun didn’t know whether he began crying from relief or anxiety or guilt.

“Sicheng, I fucked up,” he sobbed into the microphone, not waiting for Sicheng to even answer.

There was a short moment of silence as Sicheng seemed to get his bearings, and Renjun could tell he knew it was serious when he didn’t admonish him for swearing.

“I really fucked up.”

“What did you do, Renjun?” Sicheng’s voice was carefully level.

Renjun stumbled over his words in his haste to get them out. “I called him his brother ‒ fuck, I’m so stupid. Sicheng I didn’t mean it like that, I promise I didn’t. He hates being compared so much and I‒ _fuck_. Why would I say that?”

“Renjun,” Sicheng’s voice cut through the chaos of Renjun’s mind and pulled him back into reality. “You’re not making any sense.” There was no harshness to the words, only truth and a soothing quality beneath it that no one could master quite like Sicheng could. “Take a deep breath. Do it with me, okay?”

Renjun breathed in time with Sicheng, shaky and shallow but they helped nonetheless. Sicheng didn’t speak again, giving Renjun time to order his thoughts and Renjun was grateful for that. Renjun sat down on the padded windowsill and tucked his feet beneath him.

“There’s this boy.”

Sicheng’s silence was too knowing for Renjun to be comfortable and that almost made him laugh despite himself. Trust Sicheng to know, even thousands of miles away.

“He’s the second Na son.”

“Jaemin?”

Renjun nodded before remembering Sicheng couldn’t see him.

“Yeah.”

Sicheng hummed and Renjun didn’t have enough energy to decipher what he was insinuating. He’d forgotten that Sicheng had met Jaemin, forgotten that they could have met as very two different people months ago in his home country. He wasn’t sad that they hadn’t.

“What about him?”

And Renjun spilled everything. Everything he had been terrified to think about came tumbling out of his mouth in a concentrated mess of confusion and months of conflicting feelings. Every thought he had had about Jaemin but had hidden safely away in a distant part of his mind was spoken into existence, into that vague window of reality of the empty library in the small hours of the morning.

And Sicheng listened, because he always did. And he listened and he didn’t interrupt and he didn’t poke fun. And he was patient as Renjun uncovered his truest secrets, as he admitted aloud the words he hadn’t even let himself think. Because Sicheng was safe. Safer than his own mind.

“I like him.”

He was shocked at himself, and the words felt both wrong and right on his tongue as they left his mouth. Wrong because they were the antithesis to everything he’d been taught, everything he’d told himself he felt. Right because of the weight they lifted from his heart.

“As more than a friend. Fuck. Sicheng, I can’t‒ I can’t like him.”

“Why not?” There was no judgement in Sicheng’s voice. Only innocent curiosity.

“Because it’s wrong.” Self-hatred crept up Renjun’s spine.

“It’s not,” Sicheng said easily. “You’re not wrong, Renjun. In fact, this is the most right I’ve seen you in years. And I know this won’t fix everything but I need you to know that you’re being honest with yourself and that can never be wrong. You like him? Then say it with more confidence. Be a Huang.”

Renjun laughed bitterly. “I don’t think the Huang’s would really approve of this.”

“No,” Sicheng said, more forcefully now. “They don’t get to define who you are. We are the next generation and we choose what our name means. You deserve the name far more than they do. It’s not something you have to live up to, it’s a legacy you have to create.”

Renjun felt the words settle in his chest. They felt warm.

“Tell me about him. Jaemin.”

Renjun smiled, and allowed himself to forget their argument in favour of Jaemin’s smile. He told Sicheng everything. About when they first met, and how much of a dick he’d been. About the art supplies and the violin. About the decathlon. And when his story brought him to the present, he trailed off.

“Keep going,” Sicheng prompted, so Renjun did.

“He hates me now, I’m sure of it,” he finished.

“I don’t think so,” Sicheng said, sounding like he was thinking deeply. “I think he needs space and I think you need to apologise. I think he needs support and I think that needs to come from you but not just you alone.”

“You think something else, too. I can tell. What is it?”

Renjun could almost see Sicheng shaking his head.

“I’ll tell you some other time.” Renjun could hear his smile. “But I do think you haven’t fucked this up as you may think. Speak to his friends; give him some time.”

A pause.

“I’m proud of you, little brother. For so many reasons. I hope you’ll see them soon as well.”

The words felt like they pulled on Renjun’s heart, making it ache with longing, with a feeling of inadequacy.

“I'd really be nothing without you, huh?” Renjun said, his voice thick with tears.

Sicheng chuckled. “Yeah. You would be.”

Renjun was so thankful for Sicheng in his life, and only wished Jaemin could have Taeyong in the same way.

  
  


“He didn’t tell you?”

Renjun had been surprised when Jeno and Donghyuck hadn’t treated him any differently when he saw them the next morning. He had been prepared to beg and make promises and explain himself, prepared himself to deal with the terrifying fury that was two of the most powerful people in the school when they were protecting their friend.

But he supposed this made sense.

Jeno and Donghyuck had wholly blank expressions, exchanging a confused look when Renjun sat down at their table with them, looking around to make sure Jaemin wasn’t near-by.

Renjun sighed. “Okay, so don’t be angry but I kind of really fucked up last night.”

He told them what had happened. It was easier to recount it now than it had been to Sicheng, now that he’d had time to process it properly and form a plan to apologise.

Donghyuk inhaled sharply once he’d finished.

“That idiot,” he growled. “Not you,” he added quickly, flashing Renjun a look.

“You’re not angry?” 

Donghyuck shook his head. And Jeno was slower, but he did the same. Renjun sighed in relief. He didn’t know if he could handle his new friends being mad at him, no matter how much he deserved it.

“You got caught up and said something you didn’t mean,” Jeno shrugged. “We all do it and we won’t hold it against you. I just‒ I just can’t believe he didn’t tell us. He tells us everything.”

“He probably didn’t want you to worry,” Renjun suggested, hating feeling like he had ruined a friendship.

“That sounds like him.”

“He did seem in a bad mood this morning, but I just assumed it was because he was tired after staying up so late.” Jeno groaned. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell us. What do we do? He must be so hurt.”

Jeno sounded like a wounded puppy, and Renjun couldn’t help the guilt that flooded through him.

“It’s not your fault,” Donghyuck said quickly. “I mean, what you said was out of bounds but,” he broke off into a sigh, “but this is more than just one thing you said.”

“I just want to apologise,” Renjun said. “I know I was wrong and I need to make it right.”

Donghyuck and Jeno exchanged a look Renjun didn’t understand.

“I think,” Donghyuck said slowly, “that, to some degree, he needed to hear that. We’ve been trying to tell him it for years and he’s never really understood. You were harsh but maybe that’s what he needed. He’ll never let go unless someone tells him straight out, unless we all stop treading on eggshells around him whenever someone brings up Taeyong.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Donghyuck gave him a long look, piercing in its appraisal.

“I think you’re good for him, Injun,” he said.

But that reminder of his lie made him want to argue against that. He wasn’t, not when he was lying to all of them.

“Thanks,” he said, looking down so they wouldn’t see the guilt on his face. “But I can’t change his mind myself. You guys know him much better than I do, and I don’t think he’ll listen to any of us. Not about this.”

Jeno nodded. “He won’t; he’s too stubborn. We’ve been telling him the same things for years and he doesn’t really believe any of them.”

“Is there anyone who could tell him that he’d be more inclined to listen to?”

For this, he trusted Jaemin’s best friends, who understood him better than anyone else alive, to a degree that Renjun envied.

“Taeyong,” Donghyuck snorted. “But he refuses to talk to him unless he has to.”

“Someone close to Taeyong then.”

“Doyoung?” Donghyuck looked at Jeno, a question clear on his face. “He’d love to try and repair their relationship; he’s always bitching about it.”

Jeno nodded. “I’ll call him. But that doesn’t guarantee that Jaemin will speak with him.”

They both looked at Renjun then, and Renjun felt far too exposed.

“I’ll try.”

“Okay,” Donghyuck breathed out dramatically. “Let’s help our stupid best friend.”

Renjun liked that he was included in that, and felt determination fix itself into his bones.

  
  


Jaemin was in the library. That in itself wasn’t surprising, but it did make Renjun’s heart sink to once again see him sitting on the floor amongst a pile of books, open and scattered around him, instead of hanging out with their friends.

Renjun took a deep breath and braced himself. He had prepared what he wanted to say, and was ready for Jaemin to yell at him, scream at him and whatever else he needed to do.

He was taken by surprise when Jaemin looked up, right at him, with a poorly-concealed sadness about him and said, “Injun, I’m sorry.”

Renjun’s mind went into a state of panicked confusion.

“What?” He spluttered. He went towards Jaemin, kneeled on the floor in front of him and tried to get Jaemin to look him in the eyes. “Why are you apologising? I came to apologise to you.”

Jaemin laughed but it sounded wrong, sad.

“I was being petty and stupid and pathetic and I took my own shortcomings out on you and you don’t deserve that. You were only trying to take care of me and I lashed out and I’m sorry for that.”

It sounded like Jaemin had also rehearsed his own words but that didn’t hide the sincerity. Renjun’s chest ached.

“You don’t have to apologise,” he said, throwing his mental script away. He had been prepared to deal with an angry Jaemin, not a sad one. “I was out of line.”

Jaemin shook his head but Renjun ignored it, pressing forwards with his own apology.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said.” Renjun swallowed. “I told you I would never think of you as Taeyong’s little brother and it was cruel of me to say something like that. You _will_ never be Taeyong, but that’s not a bad thing. You’ll be so much better because you’ll be yourself.”

Jaemin snorted. “Injun, you don’t have to lie or say stuff that you think will make me feel better. I think it's just about time that I accept the fact that I'm not special. That I'm painfully average and not extraordinary in the slightest. I know I’ll never be as perfect as Taeyong but,” his voice went small, “I have to try. I have to do as much as I can to not be a disappointment. And if I have to sacrifice sleep and never see my friends to even come close to being as good as Taeyong is, then I’ll do that.”

Renjun hated that. He hated that more than he’d ever hated anything.

“But you don’t have to,” Renjun urged, and he hoped Jaemin would listen. That’s all he needed: for Jaemin to listen. “Jaemin, I hate that you don’t know what you’re worth.”

And maybe it was because of his newfound realisation, maybe it was because he now knew more about himself and his own feelings, but it was so much easier now than it had been that night to admit that he cared.

“I hate that you force yourself into a mould people and expectation have created for you and I wish you could see that you’re so much more than that.”

“Why?”

Renjun didn’t know why Jaemin asked, because he thought it was obvious.

“Because you’re Jaemin Na.”

“I don’t think that’s as amazing of a thing as you’re making it out to be.”

Renjun smiled, though it felt terse on his face.

“I thought you might say that. And I thought it might do you better to hear it from someone that isn’t me.”

“I swear to God, if Jeno and Hyuck are hiding behind one of these bookshelves‒”

Renjun laughed at the faux-anger on Jaemin’s face, and could have sworn it softened when he did so.

“Come on.” He stood up and ignored the way his knees clicked, holding out a hand and helping Jaemin to his feet.

“Where are we going?”

“We _are_ going to talk to a Kim, but it isn’t Jeno.”

  
  


**___**

  
  


Jaemin was nervous.

And anxiety wasn’t a foreign emotion to him, but this was a different kind. This wasn’t the kind that made his leg bounce beneath his desk when he got a test paper back, or welded his mouth shut at a family dinner; this was the kind that made his heart feel cold even as it thumped rapidly in his chest.

Injun had left him alone in an empty classroom, giving Jaemin no more information about what was about to happen outside of that he was going to speak with Doyoung. But Injun had smiled at him, beautiful and reassuring, before he’d left and that had quelled Jaemin’s nerves, if only slightly.

There was a laptop he recognised as Jeno’s on the table in front of him, but the room was very much empty besides that.

Jaemin didn’t like not knowing what was going on. He itched with the agitation to know, to know why Doyoung wanted to speak with him of all people, and how Injun was apparently in contact with him.

The laptop started making noise, and Jaemin answered the video call from Doyoung with shaking fingers.

Doyoung’s face filled the screen, and Jaemin could see the apartment he shared with Taeyong come into focus behind him. Taeyong wasn’t there, and Jaemin was grateful for it.

“Jaem,” Doyoung said, a wide smile on his face. “Long time no see.”

Jaemin felt his nerves weaken. Doyoung, for all he was Taeyong’s best friend, was also one of the people who had known Jaemin the longest, had practically helped raise him.

“Doyoung,” he smiled. “I saw you at Christmas. Is this where you tell me what’s going on?”

“I think you know what’s going on, Jaem,” Doyoung said with that insinuating look and tone of his that always drove Jaemin crazy. “I’ve heard that you’re being unhealthy.”

“You arranged this whole weird interrogation thing to make sure I’m eating my veggies?” Jaemin knew that wasn’t what he meant but he didn’t want to talk about it.

Doyoung levelled him with a look, but Jaemin had gotten good at ignoring those. Jaemin expected Doyoung to push it, and was surprised when he didn’t.

“I wasn’t the one who arranged this. You can thank your band of demons for that. Though, there was a new one that neither you nor Jeno have told me about; he looked familiar.”

“He’s new to the school,” Jaemin said. “And he’s not from a rich family, so I doubt you’ve seen him before.”

Doyoung hummed.

“Where’s Taeyong?” Jaemin asked, more to keep the conversation as far away from himself as he could.

Doyoung could see right through it, he knew, but Doyoung humoured him regardless. He sighed. “Your brother is pretending to care about the Chicago Bulls and just generally being stupid.”

Jaemin didn’t want to ask further.

“And I,” luckily, Doyoung spared him by continuing to speak, “need you to stop being equally as stupid. Must run in the family,” he added under his breath, but there was a fondness there that Jaemin couldn’t help but smile at.

“I’m not being stupid.” Jaemin jumped on the defensive now that there was no avoiding the lecture that Doyoung had obviously been called in to give him.

“You are,” Doyoung said, with a tone that left no room for argument. But Jaemin had always had a talent for picking fights that weren’t there.

“Listen, I know Jeno and Hyuck are worried about me but they didn’t need to have called you and I don’t know why they did. I am perfectly fine; not ‘unhealthy’ or whatever.”

The look Doyoung gave him was less than convinced.

“You know, Jaemin, you spend a lot of your time trying to be like Taeyong when you’re already so similar it’s scary.”

Jaemin felt incredibly affronted at that; on Taeyong’s behalf or his own, he didn’t know.

“We’re not,” he said, because that was always his answer when someone said that. Taeyong was so much better. “You should know better than anyone that that isn’t true.”

Doyoung smiled unhappily. “No, I know better than anyone just how true it is.” Somehow, even through the screen, he managed to look Jaemin directly in the eyes. “You really think Taeyong is perfect, don’t you?

Jaemin nodded, because Taeyong was and he always had been. It was the defining feature of his personality. And everyone knew so.

Doyoung shook his head and laughed bitterly.

“Remember in our last year when he missed the second round of the decathlon and we almost lost?”

Jaemin snorted. “Yeah, he got the flu and felt so bad about missing it that he baked brownies for for the entire team.”

Jaemin smiled at the memory, of Taeyong apologising profusely and frantically distributing brownies. Jaemin had taken more than his share because they were just too good: another testament to how perfect Taeyong was.

“That was a lie.”

The memory dropped like an object made of glass.

“What really happened was Ten and Yuta and I had to physically restrain him in bed because he had such a bad panic attack but was still insisting that he couldn’t miss the competition. And then he felt awful for the next month, and spent almost the entire time in a depressive episode because he felt guilty for letting the school down.”

Jaemin couldn’t speak; there weren’t words to encapsulate just how much his world was splintering around him. Taeyong had always been this figure, this flawless icon he had both envied and admired and each of Doyoung’s words fragmented it more. The words pushed on the cracks that they had created in Jaemin’s reality until it had shattered it completely.

“Did you never wonder why he suddenly quit dance in year thirteen? Or why he and Ten didn’t speak for weeks if he was supposedly so perfect?”

Jaemin shook his head. Because he never had and he hated himself for it now.

“He was constantly breaking down and refusing anyone’s help and trying to be everything at once and the need to live up to the idea of perfection didn’t help. Neither does you ignoring him all the time.”

Doyoung took a deep breath, as though it were as difficult for him to say this as it was for Jaemin to hear it.

“He’s not perfect, Jaemin. He’s so far from it. None of this comes easy to him the way you think it does. He’s my best friend and I love him but he’s not perfect because no one is. He can be overbearing and obsessive and irritable. And you shouldn’t aim to be like him because he isn’t doing that either. He’s trying to be better.

“Of course, I’m not saying you shouldn’t look up to him because you should ‒ Lord knows I do everyday ‒ just, stop putting him on this impossible pedestal.

“The truth is, you don’t know much about your brother,” he said, his gaze too exposing, “not really. And that’s both of your faults. Yours because you never bothered to ask and his because he wanted to keep it hidden more than anything.”

Jaemin still didn’t say anything. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

“Give him a call, Jaemin. It’ll mean more to him than you know.”

And Jaemin realised that if there was anyone who wouldn't buy into the narrative that Taeyong was perfect, it would be the people who loved him the most. And that he was meant to be one of those people.

“Yong?” Jaemin hated how small his voice sounded in his own ears. He hadn’t video called; he didn’t think he could manage seeing Taeyong’s face while having this conversation.

“Jaem!” Taeyong’s was nothing but ecstatic and guilt ripped through Jaemin like a bolt of lightning. “Why are you calling? Is something wrong?”

Taeyong’s voice turned worried too quickly, and Jaemin laughed a little hysterically because _of course_ Taeyong would assume something bad had happened. Because why else would he think Jaemin was calling him?

“Nothing’s wrong, Yong; I promise,” he said, but he knew Taeyong could hear his tears in his voice. But the truth of the matter was that there wasn’t anything wrong. For the first time in a very long while, Jaemin might have been alright. If only Taeyong would forgive him.

“I’m really sorry, Yong,” he said.

“Whatever for?” Taeyong sounded genuinely confused and Jaemin was reminded exactly how he’d spent so much of his life thinking he was perfect.

“For being a shitty brother.”

“No,” Taeyong said. “You’re not a shitty brother, Jaem. You never have been.”

Jaemin snorted; it sounded gross through his tears.

“Don’t lie, Tae,” he said. “I’ve been awful.”

There was quiet for a moment and Jaemin thought that Taeyong was giving up his pretences, accepting how bad Jaemin had been.

“You’ve been the best little brother I could ask for, Jaemie,” he said instead, and Jaemin’s heart clenched with the feeling of lacking.

“Like you haven’t thought that Mark would be better.”

“Not once.” And Jaemin didn’t want to believe him, but the sincerity in Taeyong’s voice made it difficult. “I love Mark but he isn’t you. No one’s like you.”

“Well, according to Doyoung, we’re the same person.”

Jaemin could almost hear Taeyong roll his eyes. “Yeah, I wouldn’t take most of what Doyoung says to heart.”

“He told me about decathlon two years ago,” Jaemin said quietly. He heard Taeyong’s breath still. “About how you didn’t really get the flu.”

It sounded more like a question, one he’d let Taeyong decide if he wanted to answer.

“Is that all he told you?” It sounded like Taeyong was holding his breath.

“He told me some other things,” Jaemin admitted. “About your mental health, mainly. Things about you I’d never noticed but after he pointed them out, I couldn’t stop noticing and thinking about.”

“Right.” Taeyong swallowed. “And what did you think?”

He sounded so scared.

“But it always looked so easy for you. Why did you never tell me?” It was only mildly accusatory. Mostly it was desperate.

“Because you're my little brother, Jaem. I’m meant to be your role model. And it's not your responsibility to deal with my problems. Not in the same way it's mine to look after yours. And clearly, I haven't been doing that well enough.”

“You have,” Jaemin sniffed. “You've been doing so well. It's my fault. I was being stupid.”

“You could never be stupid.”

Jaemin knew that was wrong. And maybe it was a little comforting to have proof that Taeyong wasn’t as perfect as he seemed.

“I can definitely be stupid.”

“Maybe a little.”

They both laughed, and it was only then that Jaemin realised just how warped this was, how weird it felt for him to laugh with his own brother like this.

“I really love you, Yong. And I don’t tell you that nearly enough but I do.”

Taeyong laughed lightly, but it wasn’t cruel.

“I love you too, Jaem.” Jaemin could tell his brother was crying, too.

And maybe it was a few years late, but Jaemin thought that it was better late than never to start on an actual relationship with his brother.

“Can I tell you about something?”

“Of course, anything.”

“So… um,” Jaemin suddenly didn’t want to say anything, wanted to keep it as a secret that existed as hushed whispers in the dead of night. But he’d been desperate to talk about it and had somewhat exhausted the topic with Jeno and Donghyuck, whom he was sure had grown sick of hearing about it by now. “There’s this boy.”

Taeyong’s laugh was musical, and it made heat rise to Jaemin’s cheeks.

“Yong,” he whined.

“Sorry, sorry,” Taeyong said through laughs. “Go on.”

“No,” Jaemin snapped, but there was no real bite behind it.

“Please.”

Jaemin laughed, and tried not to think too hard about how carefree it was, how right it felt in his chest, even as his voice was still thick with tears. Happy tears, now. And the thought of that alone was enough to make him cry even harder as he laughed.

  
  


“You absolute fucking bastards.”

Jeno and Donghyuck both looked up at him from where they were lounging on his bed. Jeno had the decency to look sheepish but Donghyuck wore a majestically shit-eating grin.

Jaemin stalked over to the pair of them and tackled them into a hug.

“I hate you; you’re both stupid.”

“Love you too, Jaem,” Jeno said.

“I guess the talk went well, then?” Jaemin grinned to match Donghyuck and pulled back to look at his two best friends properly.

“I’ll tell you all about it, I promise. But for now, I just need you to know that you’re the most amazing people in the world and I’m endlessly grateful to have you as my friends.”

“That goes for you too, Nana,” Jeno said at the same time Donghyuck said, “we’re aware.”

Jaemin sat back on his heels, smile so wide his face ached. He’d spent a long time reaching for things he just couldn’t get a hold of. He hadn’t needed them. Ever. Not when he’d had such amazing people by his side since the very beginning.

  
  


**___**

  
  


“Thought I might find you here.”

Renjun looked up from his sketchbook to see Jaemin standing at the end of the second-wave Romantic poetry aisle. Renjun closed his book and put it down next to him on the windowsill, scooching over in an invitation for Jaemin to take.

Renjun looked over him carefully, terrified he’d see a sign of distress that would tell him his plan had only made things worse. The relief that filled him when he couldn’t find any was overwhelmingly serene.

Jaemin sat opposite him, pulling his knees up so he was mirroring Renjun’s own position.

“So I’m guessing you don’t hate me?”

“Not since December.”

Renjun looked down to avoid the piercing nature of Jaemin’s gaze and hide the redness that rose to his ears.

“Thank you,” Jaemin said. “I don’t say that nearly enough and I think you deserve to hear it.” Renjun could still feel Jaemin’s eyes on him. When he looked up, it felt as though Jaemin could see nothing else. He hoped that were true, wished it were more than a deluded fantasy.

“That entire conversation ‒ it was like a weight off my chest. And I haven’t felt quite as giddy as this in a long time but it also felt familiar. Nostalgic.”

He smiled, and took Renjun’s breath away with it.

The sunlight was pale but warm where it flooded in through the window, and it left Jaemin half in shadow, half in light and Renjun didn’t think it was fair for a person to look that ethereal. The light draped itself over Jaemin’s left side, folded into the features of his face. Renjun’s fingers itched to paint him.

“And it was only after I thought about it for a long time that I realised why.”

And at surface level, his voice might have sounded playful, but there was a depth to it Renjun couldn’t quite grasp.

“I feel like that when I’m with you.”

Renjun’s breath hitched and his heart stuttered and every other cliché thing happened to him at once.

“You make me happy, Injun.”

And that wasn’t his name, but Renjun wished it were.

“You make me happy, too,” he said.

Jaemin’s smile was delicate, blissful. He leant forward slightly, and the shadows chased after him as he did so.

“I like you, Injun,” he said. His voice was soft, a whispered secret meant for Renjun and Renjun alone in this pocket of the world, suspended in time as the earth stopped spinning just for the two of them.

“I like you, too,” he breathed out.

“I hoped you would.”

Jaemin brought his hand up, and Renjun leaned into the touch, letting Jaemin’s thumb rest just below his cheekbone. Renjun watched as Jaemin followed its movement with his eyes before he looked up to meet Renjun’s. The question there was clear, and Renjun felt himself rejoice.

He nodded. Nothing more than a tiny tilt of his head, but Jaemin understood.

Renjun met Jaemin halfway, and the first touch of their lips was electrifying but intimate, familiar in a way that made him feel as though this had been inevitable to some degree, as ridiculous as the thought was. He didn’t believe in the concept of soulmates, believed that people chose love. But if there could have been anything, any moment that might have made him believe, it would have been this kiss with Jaemin.

Their legs were tangled awkwardly, and someone could have easily walked past at any moment, but Renjun forgot everything besides the feeling of Jaemin’s lips on his, the feeling of Jaemin’s hand against his cheek.

They pulled away slowly, resting their foreheads against each other and Renjun’s eyes found Jaemin’s immediately.

Jaemin was beautiful, his lips red and eyes almost fully black if not for that trademark glint in them. Jaemin’s hand was still on Renjun’s face and it burned where they touched. Renjun leant into it.

Jaemin looked like he was in awe, and Renjun could understand because that was exactly how he felt, too.

Jaemin’s other hand found Renjun’s, and he intertwined their fingers like it was second nature to him.

“God,” Jaemin said, more to himself than Renjun. His voice was thick. “I like you so much. You’re so amazing.”

Renjun smiled. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

He leaned forward again, and they both smiled into their second kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/whatisanult)   
>  [cc](https://curiouscat.me/whatisanult)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all ready for some angst? ofc you are

“So, boyfriend.”

Renjun fought against the blush that threatened to rise to his cheeks. _Scholarship_ had a sort of sentimental value to it, but there was no competition. He preferred _boyfriend_ and he didn’t think he’d ever grow tired of hearing Jaemin saying it.

He pulled himself together and fixed his gaze on Jaemin.

“Yes, boyfriend?”

Renjun loved how the word affected Jaemin just as much as it affected him.

“I was thinking we should go on a date. A proper one. This weekend. Thoughts?”

Renjun laughed. It was such a Jaemin way of asking.

“I’d love that.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up at three.”

“From where?”

“Your dorm,” Jaemin said, like it was obvious.

“No water polo this week?” Renjun asked, half-teasing, half-serious.

Jaemin smiled. “I rescheduled. Just for you.”

Renjun ignored the way his heart soared.

“It’s a date.”

  
  


There wasn’t much to do in the town, but that didn’t stop Jaemin.

They went to a café, the nicest one Renjun had never let himself go to before, and Jaemin had bought him a large jasmine green tea and a slice of red velvet cake. Jaemin had an Americano with eight shots of espresso that made Renjun retch when he tried a sip. They’d sat in one of the booths at the back, and soft piano music accompanied them as the spoke.

Renjun spent the time feeling light. Light in mind, light in body, light in soul.

Moments like these hadn’t existed all too often in Shanghai, but they seemed to be plentiful when he was with Jaemin. There was something special about that, he supposed. But he didn’t look too far into it. He just took it as it was, and was grateful for it.

He was grateful for Jaemin.

The thought was soppy so he didn’t say it out loud, but he hoped Jaemin knew.

They held hands over the table the entire time they were there, and Renjun thought that he probably did.

  
  


Renjun knew what was going to happen before it did. In fact, he was surprised it had taken them this long.

So when he was walking down the hallway of Willow one second only to be pulled roughly into a dark empty classroom and thrust into a chair the next, he didn’t fear for his life perhaps as much as he should have.

Donghyuck, because he was a special brand of extra, switched on a white light lamp and shone it directly into Renjun’s eyes, using one of his hands to pin Renjun’s shoulder to the back of the chair.

Jeno was attempting to look intimidating behind him.

“What are your intentions with Jaemin Na?”

Renjun would have laughed had Donghyuck’s face not been so close to his. He considered making a joke, but doubted that it would be properly appreciated at that moment.

“To be his boyfriend and treat him well.”

“Where’s your soul?” Donghyuck demanded.

Renjun tried again. “To be the best boyfriend I can be to him and never let him feel like anything less than the amazing person he is.”

Donghyuck moved away to confer with Jeno in exaggerated whispers. They looked back at Renjun simultaneously and Renjun held his breath.

“I suppose you don’t need us to tell you what will happen to you if you hurt him?”

Renjun shook his head. 

They exchanged a look. Donghyuck sighed.

“Welcome to the family, Wei,” he said.

  
  


“Okay, so don’t freak out, alright?”

“You can’t preface something like that,” Kunhang said. “It makes me want to reflexively freak out.”

Renjun sighed in exasperation.

“He’s right,” Dejun chimed in. “Just say what you want to say.”

Well, there went Renjun’s plans of building the suspense.

“I have a boyfriend,” he said, smiling automatically. It still didn’t feel real to say it but he loved it, loved the way the words tasted in his mouth.

The noises coming across the speaker were enough to tell Renjun that his friends had not heeded his words and were, indeed, freaking out.

“What?! Who?! The fuck?”

Renjun laughed. “Jaemin Na,” he said, and couldn’t hide the pride with which he said it.

“I thought you hated him?” Dejun said as Kunhang broke into a series of splutters. “I think you broke him,” Dejun added derisively.

“I don’t now,” Renjun said. “I don’t think I have for a while.”

Kunhang’s noises became fainter, and Renjun guessed that Dejun was moving away.

“Are you happy?”

Renjun was taken aback by the question. “When I’m with him, always.”

“Then I’m happy for you.” Renjun could hear his smile, could picture it so clearly in his mind it made his heart ache with a homesickness he hadn’t felt in a while. “Kunhang is, too. And he’ll be able to tell you that himself once he’s stopped going insane.”

Renjun laughed again. He was learning so much about being grateful these days, and he owed it to so many people.

“Does he know who you really are?”

The words were cold when Renjun had been living in a warm fantasy for so long. His voice was small when he replied.

“No. I haven’t told him.”

Dejun didn’t say anything to that, but his silence was judgemental.

“You can’t keep lying to him if you’re serious about him. You are, aren’t you?”

Renjun hated that he used to be the kind of person where that would have been a necessary question to ask.

“I am serious about him. More than I’ve ever been about anything. And I will tell him. Just not right now.”

Because Renjun knew it was wrong, but he wanted to live in these moments for as long as he could. And he couldn’t see the darkness of his secret if he always chose to look at the bright light that was Jaemin.

  
  
  


Jaemin gave his deck of flashcards to Jeno and used his now free hand to link his fingers with Renjun’s. They were sitting at the back of the hall, watching the semi-final of the second round. Whoever won would be their next opponent; neither of them was particularly worried. Renjun let his head fall on Jaemin’s shoulder.

They snorted simultaneously when one of the contestants got a question wrong.

“Can you imagine thinking that Shakespeare was even alive in 1802?” Jaemin whispered.

“Get them off the stage,” Renjun pretended to heckle.

He felt more than heard Jaemin laugh.

“You want to go out Friday night? We could take a train out to London and spend the weekend there, if you wanted. You’ve barely been outside of town the entire time you’ve been in England and I’ll feel like a failure of a boyfriend if you don’t get to see the city properly.”

“Hotels in London are expensive,” Renjun said.

“That’s not a problem,” Jaemin was quick to insist.

“I know it’s not for you,” Renjun tilted his head so he could look at Jaemin. “But it is for me. I’d much prefer to just stay here with you and watch a movie or something. I don’t need a big spectacle.”

“I just don’t want you to get bored.”

Jaemin had been much more open with his insecurities recently, and Renjun couldn’t explain how happy it felt to be trusted in that way.

“Of you?” Renjun grinned. “Never. Literally impossible. Sorry, but you’re stuck with me.”

They smiled at each other for a moment before Renjun looked away, focusing back on the stage as they read out the final question. Both he and Jaemin answered it under their breath seconds before any of the teams on stage buzzed in.

“Besides, I have a shift Friday night.”

“Want me to come keep you company?”

Renjun shook his head. “Kun says you’re banned,” he laughed. “Apparently I’m too distracted when you’re around.”

“Well, I am very distracting,” Jaemin said.

Renjun didn’t disagree.

One of the teams finally buzzed in with the correct answer and Renjun lifted himself off of Jaemin’s shoulder and took back his own hand, immediately missing the warmth. He clicked his neck.

“Let’s go win this thing.”

  
  


When Renjun walked out of the restaurant that Friday night, composing a text to Jaemin to let him know he was on his way, he saw a slick, expensive black car parked right in front of the exit. He frowned at it. This was a one-lane road but he supposed that people who didn’t respect the rules of the road existed everywhere.

The door opened and Renjun nearly dropped his phone when he saw who got out.

“Renjun,” his father said, an element to his voice Renjun hadn’t heard before and couldn’t recognise.

“Father,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.

His grip around his phone tightened, his message to Jaemin left dormant, unsent. He suspected he wouldn’t be making it back to the dorms any time soon.

His father gestured to the car and Renjun followed him inside, relishing the warmth as the door closed behind him. The car started almost instantly.

“Congratulations on winning the second round of your academic competition.”

Renjun didn’t ask how he knew; he didn’t need to know. He only needed to know one thing.

“Why are you here?” He didn’t bother trying to mask how tired he was.

His father’s face hardened slightly again, but Renjun was indifferent to him and his approval now. If this ‘punishment’ had taught him anything, it was that he could survive without it.

“I told you when you returned home over the holidays that I was impressed by your improvement and I’m happy to say that that has continued. I am proud of you, my son.”

And there would have been a time those words would have meant more to Renjun than the air in his lungs. But now he had a new family ‒ one he’d found all on his own ‒ who would tell him those things every day. So when his father said them, they just sounded hollow. Echoes of words he once longed to hear.

His father had clearly been expecting some kind of visible reaction, but carried on smoothly when he received nothing.

“I also told you that I would be able to provide you with an opportunity to redeem yourself. Well, I am happy to say that that opportunity is soon. Your mother and brother and I have all come to England to attend a gala hosted by one of our business partners and we would like you to attend, also. As our son.”

And Renjun would much rather have played Pictionary with his friends on the floor of their bedroom, or sketched Jaemin’s side profile as he worked but he knew he couldn’t say no.

“I’d love to,” he said.

His father nodded and clapped Renjun on the shoulder. It was unsettling, to say the least.

“I’ll have someone send a suitable outfit to your room,” he said. And, just like that, he was straight back to business. Renjun didn’t have it in him to be disappointed, not when the bar had been on the floor since the beginning. “I’ll see you soon, son.”

Renjun climbed out of the car, where they’d stopped in front of the school’s gates.

“I’ll see you soon, father.”

  
  


“Promise you won’t laugh.”

“There’s no way I’m promising that.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes. They were lying in Jaemin’s bed, over the duvets because it was just about the time of spring when it was hot enough without them. Renjun’s head was bedded on Jaemin’s arm and he was staring at Jaemin’s face whilst he stared at the ceiling.

“My mother wants to get a family portrait done.”

Renjun laughed, loudly. “I’m so glad I didn’t make that promise,” he said.

Jaemin pouted, but Renjun could see the way the corners of his mouth kept trying to twitch up.

“What type of painting?”

“Think Gothic Victorian,” Jaemin said. “Oil paints and blank faces and all that kind of classic family fun.”

“Aww,” Renjun cooed, poking at Jaemin’s cheek with his finger. “I’m sure you’ll make a great repressed, depraved little Victorian boy.”

“It’s who I am inside.”

Renjun laughed. “Is Taeyong coming back for it?”

Jaemin nodded and Renjun loved how it wasn’t a touchy subject anymore, was so proud of Jaemin. “Yeah, he’s already coming back home for something else, so my mother thought that she’d grab the opportunity and schedule the artist. And then she’ll hang it in the entrance hall of the estate to really embrace those eccentric rich supervillain stereotypes we already perpetuate constantly.”

“Please tell me you are secretly all supervillains. It will make you so much more interesting than just a family of annoying rich people.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

It was quiet for a few moments, and Renjun could feel Jaemin’s fingers play with his hair as he closed his eyes.

“Why’s Taeyong coming back then? If it’s not expressly for the very normal portrait?”

“There’s this event thing that my parents are making us all attend. Usually, they’d just make Taeyong go but apparently, it’s important that I’m there, too this time. So much so that they’re pulling me out of school so I can attend.”

“How come?”

“My father wants me to meet his business partner's son. They're doing a merger and hope I'll get in good with him or something ‒ like that's possible.”

“What do you mean?” Renjun asked.

“You wouldn't know this,” Jaemin said carefully, “but this guy is sort of infamous among young masters for being, well… being a screw-up.”

“Who is he?” Renjun prodded, hoping Jaemin wouldn’t say what he thought he would.

“Renjun Huang,” Jaemin said, and Renjun's stomach dropped.

“No one knows what he looks like because he always skips his public appearances to go get drunk or something like that. His parents are apparently so ashamed of him they've hidden him away for the last few months but he's scheduled to come to the gala because he's changed or whatever. All I know is that I have to try and befriend him for my family's sake, even though all I know about him is that he's meant to be a brat.”

“Much like yourself and every other rich kid I've ever met,” Renjun said, a touch too defensively but luckily Jaemin didn't seem to notice.

He chuckled. “You’re so blunt, Injunnie; it’s adorable. And yes, but at least most of us have the brains to keep our angsty rebelling away from the tabloids.”

Renjun laughed, hoping it didn't sound as forced as it felt and tried to ignore just how quickly everything was coming crashing down around him. This is it, a voice urged at the back of his head. He had to tell Jaemin. Right now.

“You don't look too good.” Jaemin spun so he was on his side and moved his face until it was right in front of Renjun's. Too close. Far too close for him to think properly. “Are you alright, Injunnie?”

There it was. That name. That name that wasn't his but had grown to feel like it was. Especially when Jaemin said it.

“I'll stop talking about other boys if that helps,” Jaemin said, half-joking, half-not.

Renjun shook his head. “That's not it,” he said. “But about that boy‒” he stumbled over his own name, “that Renjun.”

Jaemin shook his head, effectively shutting Renjun up. “He won't mean a thing, Injunnnie,” he promised, so sincere that Renjun could have wept. “He's rich but apparently that's all he is.” Jaemin's words hurt in more than one way, though Renjun knew he couldn't blame him. He couldn't blame Jaemin for anything. “I really like you, Injunnie. And some stupid gala won't change that.”

Renjun breathed deeply, Jaemin's words settling like a blanket over the panic flaring in his chest. “I know, Jaemin,” he said. “But I need to tell you something and I need you to not hate me after I've said it.”

“Of course,” Jaemin said, face serious now but entirely trusting and that made Renjun's conviction shrivel up. He began to regret it, began to wonder if he should say nothing and stretch these last few moments where he could live removed from reality, where he could live as Injun Wei and not have to worry about Jaemin leaving him for lying, or money or reputation.

But then he looked at Jaemin and he knew he couldn't.

He opened his mouth.

The door to the room burst open.

“Nana,” Jeno said, voice breathy as he panted. “It’s Jisungie; he’s really freaking out over his mock.”

Jaemin looked back at Renjun for a fragment of a moment, a silent question in his eyes.

Renjun nodded. _Go_.

Jaemin leapt off the bed, and ran after Jeno, the door shutting too loudly behind them.

Renjun turned onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. That had been his chance. And he’d been too much of a coward to do anything about it. 

But lying there, surrounded by Jaemin’s warmth and his scent, and still able to picture the profundity of his gaze against the white ceiling, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it. And that in itself filled him with a stinging resentment directed at himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to break the persona he had built and let his real self seep out through the cracks and stain the best thing in his life.

And he knew it was selfish and wrong. But he wasn’t ready to lose Jaemin. Not just yet.

  
  


Renjun straightened his bow tie.

It was too tight around his throat, constricting his breathing. The tux was stiff, newly bought and that was a foreign feeling to him when the only new clothes he’d worn in a while were things either second hand from charity shops or second hand from Jaemin’s wardrobe.

He pulled down at the sleeves of the suit jacket. His hair was styled away from his face, and his father had given him a gold Rolex as a gift for his good behaviour. It was bulky around his wrist. Rolex was an obnoxious brand; he’d always thought so.

There was a knock at the door of the hotel room.

“Renjun, we’re waiting for you,” came Sicheng’s voice across the suite Renjun was staying in.

He’d missed luxury, but not as much as he’d thought he had. Instead, he found himself finding it too big, too empty without it being filled with Yangyang rattling on about something. It was a gold, ornate room. Decked out in finery like the god of rich snobs had sneezed all over it.

“I’m coming,” he called back.

He gave himself one final look. Putting on the tuxedo had felt like stepping back into the skin of Renjun Huang again. But it felt strange, uncanny. Like he’d changed so much it didn’t quite fit anymore.

Renjun Huang had used to embody confidence to the point of pretentiousness, but now Renjun Huang had been stripped down to someone who was scared, too small in this big hotel room.

Renjun wished he were Injun Wei.

“Renjun!”

He breathed out slowly and tore his eyes away from the mirror. He had lived in illusion for as long as he could, but now it was time to face reality, no matter how painfully it made his heart throb.

Renjun stood a little behind his parents, beside Sicheng, behind a closed set of double doors that he knew led to a ballroom. He could hear music and voices from inside the hall, and his heart was too fast in his chest.

Sicheng shot him a questioning look, because Renjun had never been nervous about these things before. Bored and insolent, yes. But nervous about a party? The thought had used to be laughable. Now it was his reality.

He sent Sicheng a smile, and could tell it did nothing to reassure his brother, but looked away anyhow.

The doors swung open and Renjun schooled his face into something neutral by muscle memory alone as his mind went into panic.

The doors opened to reveal the top platform of a large, sweeping staircase. The hall was much the same as the rest of the hotel: overly gold and ostentatious. These places had once defined Renjun’s home, but now he felt far more welcome in a quiet corner of the school’s library than a gala party.

“And welcome our esteemed guests of honour, Mr and Mrs Huang and their children.”

Applause filled the hall as Renjun and his family descended the stairs.

A man he recognised as Jaemin’s father was waiting at the bottom with an amicable smile on his face. Jaemin’s mother was next to him, wearing an eerily similar expression. They looked so different from when Renjun had last seen them: a testament to how fake business really was. But Renjun didn’t care for them, not when just behind them and to the side, Jaemin was standing there looking every bit the heir he was.

He was dressed in an identical tux to his brother, who clearly recognised Renjun but was keeping his face pulled into a pleasant smile. But Renjun could see the way Taeyong’s eyes kept flicking between Jaemin and Renjun, a sort of subdued panic in them that Renjun would have been unable to see if it hadn’t been such a Jaemin expression.

Renjun didn’t want to look at Jaemin, and almost couldn’t bring himself to. He didn’t want to know, wanted to pretend that none of this was happening.

But he’d been pretending for long enough.

Hurt. That’s what was on Jaemin’s face. No anger or betrayal or anything like that. Only pain. Pain that Renjun felt bury itself like a dagger into his own heart, even though he knew he didn’t deserve to feel it.

He could feel Sicheng’s confusion, wondering why there was such tension between them and Renjun wished he could explain but he didn’t think there was a way to word it that didn’t make him sound like an awful person, because he was.

Jaemin’s eyes were blown wide from what had seconds ago been confusion but were now too clear with understanding. He met Renjun’s eyes as the Huang’s walked down the staircase and Renjun almost couldn’t breathe with how much Jaemin’s pain hurt him.

Especially with how he knew that he was the cause. He had caused pain to the most beautiful, wonderful boy he had ever met and Renjun knew then that the two of them were alike. They’d both never forgive Renjun for this.

The urge to go to Jaemin, run down the steps and take his boyfriend into his arms was overwhelming, overpowering. But he knew it would do nothing but make it worse.

They had to go through the steps of tonight, knowing that tomorrow couldn’t be the same as yesterday.

Renjun wanted to cry even as he knew he had no right to. Not when the entire thing was his fault.

Jaemin looked away from Renjun, as though the sight of him made him sick. Renjun wouldn’t blame him if it were true.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Renjun knew that Jaemin was just as acutely aware of all the eyes on them as he was. Their parents shook hands, and Sicheng and Taeyong did the same, matching looks of pretend friendliness on their faces.

They were both subtle in the way they looked towards Renjun and Jaemin cautiously, but their gazes seared into Renjun like flames.

Jaemin held out his hand first, and Renjun was surprised but he didn’t hesitate to take it.

Jaemin didn’t quite meet his eyes when he said, in a carefully level voice, “it’s nice to meet you.”

Renjun knew the flash of hurt he felt at that wasn’t warranted. “You, too,” he said, and he hoped no one else heard how his voice wavered. But he knew Jaemin had. Jaemin knew him too well.

Their parents walked off together, talking about stocks and shares and other things Renjun had no interest in.

“I want a drink,” Jaemin said, and began to walk towards the refreshment table.

Renjun saw Taeyong make to go after him, now looking distinctly concerned but Jaemin turned around and scowled.

“Are you coming or not?” He directed at Renjun.

Renjun knew his shocked expression was mimicked on Sicheng and Taeyong’s faces, but scurried after Jaemin anyway. He was grateful Jaemin was giving him a chance, no matter how little he deserved one. He left Taeyong and Sicheng alone, sure that between the two of them they could piece together what was happening.

Jaemin walked abnormally quickly to the table at the other end of the hall, not sparing another glance at Renjun. They finally reached it, and Renjun watched as Jaemin looked around the hall to make sure neither of their parents were looking before he downed an entire flute of champagne.

“Jaemi‒”

“Don’t talk to me,” Jaemin bit out, refusing to look at him.

“But‒”

“My parents want me to befriend you so I have to at least pretend to do so. Though, I already told you that, didn't I, In‒ Renjun?”

“You can call me Injun.” His voice was quiet.

“It's not your name,” Jaemin snapped.

It wasn't an insult, not an actual one anyway, but it burned Renjun like it had been.

It was horribly, awkwardly silent between them.

Jaemin ate an hor d'oeuvre before drinking another champagne flute. He wrinkled his nose at the taste; Renjun knew he preferred fruitier drinks. And no one batted an eye at the seventeen-year-old drinking champagne like his life depended on it and Renjun knew he was back in the world of the aristocracy, where there were certain liberties with legality.

“I can’t believe you‒” Jaemin started before he cut himself off and breathed out loudly.

And Renjun knew that whatever he was about to say would have hurt, would have torn into him the same way he had to Jaemin. But he needed to hear them. Because he could deal with an angry Jaemin yelling at him and calling him a liar but he couldn’t deal with this silence. This inner turmoil of brewing thoughts and hatred he knew was growing in Jaemin’s mind.

“I’m sor‒”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Jaemin hissed. “We are not doing this here; we are not doing this ever if I don’t want to. You don’t get to do shit. Just shut up and pretend you’re having the time of your fucking life.”

He plastered on a smile so fake it made Renjun’s heart ache but he responded in kind, trying his best even as the smile physically hurt on his face.

Jaemin started rattling on about the etymology of the word _tree_ , probably just to trick his parents into thinking they were getting along, but Renjun could tell that every word was paining him. He didn’t look at Renjun once.

Jaemin kept looking over at Taeyong and sending him a look that loosely translated to _I’ll be fine; I’ll tell you later_. And, despite everything, Renjun was glad Jaemin at least had Taeyong now if he didn’t want Renjun anymore.

“Mrs Martle,” Jaemin called out, and began to walk towards an old woman with a row of pearls lining her throat.

Renjun trailed after him awkwardly as Jaemin began to network, effectively ignoring him apart from when he briefly introduced him.

The evening passed much in that same way, with Renjun becoming Jaemin’s shadow as he greeted people Renjun didn’t know and didn’t care to know. And maybe if Renjun hadn’t been so overcome with guilt and fear, he would have relished the chance to see Jaemin in his element as he was. With a charming smile that even Renjun struggled to identify as fake, and delicate laughs and questions that were just the right side of personal. 

And Renjun knew why his parents had wanted him to be more like Jaemin all those months ago. The only thing he didn’t know was why Jaemin had ever felt inadequate when it was evident that he was the dutiful, perfect son even without the rose-tinted glasses of Renjun’s own feelings. He was the perfect balance of business and socially minded.

But then Renjun would catch how Jaemin’s eyes flickered over to his parents every so often, and Renjun would feel understanding sink into his gut like a weight.

It was drawing near to midnight when Jaemin’s and his parents announced that they were going to the bar on the top floor of the hotel to discuss private matters, and that the children were free to return to their rooms if they wanted to.

Jaemin waited until their parents were entirely out of the room before he stormed off, not looking at any of them.

Taeyong was about to follow him but Renjun shot him a pleading look. Taeyong seemed to debate it for a moment, his face stony and scary before he finally relinquished.

“Don’t make it any worse.” His voice was dangerous, as though daring Renjun to upset Jaemin further just so Taeyong had cause to destroy him. Renjun didn’t blame him.

He nodded, and followed after Jaemin, weaving through the crowd with stiff smiles and hurried apologies.

Jaemin was standing leaning against a wall, a few hallways away from the hall. His blazer was thrown over his forearm and his bow tie was hanging loose around his neck, shirt unbuttoned.

His face entirely hidden in shadow, and Renjun was almost glad for it, almost didn’t want to see the suffering face of the boy who meant so much to him.

Jaemin heard his footsteps and looked up and, even through the shadows, Renjun could see how his face fell from something distinctly sad and faraway into something enraged.

“Go away,” he spat. “I don’t want to see you; I thought I made that clear.”

“I couldn’t just leave you,” Renjun said.

“What do you want?”

“To apologise.”

“Then too fucking bad,” Jaemin snarled. “You’ve had months ‒ _months_ ‒ to tell me who you really are, to tell me that you’ve been lying to me and everyone else and you said nothing and now you want to talk?” He scoffed, the sound more pained that derogatory. “Too late.”

“I had to,” Renjun said, hoping with the barest threads of hope he still had left that Jaemin would listen to him. “My parents would have disowned me if I hadn’t.”

“How would they have known? How _could_ they have known?”

Renjun swallowed. “I didn’t want to ruin what we had.” It sounded pathetic to his own ears.

“Well, that’s gone just fucking great for you, hasn’t it?”

It was silent for a moment as Jaemin seethed and Renjun lamented his own mistakes. Then Jaemin stepped forwards, out of the shadows and Renjun felt his heart break when he saw that Jaemin’s face was stricken with tears, red with fury.

“I trusted you,” Jaemin yelled, his voice fraying and scratchy but he didn’t let up as the words he’d been holding onto all night, had been thinking and hiding behind an entrancing smile came rushing out of his mouth with all the strength of a blunt force.

“I told you things, things I hadn’t told anyone, not even Hyuck and Jeno.” He started to sob as he shouted. A harrowing, dreadful blend of despair and rage and resentment that echoed off the walls of the corridor, echoed around the plane of Renjun's mind. Renjun felt his own tears burn in his eyes before they began to fall down his face. He was too scared to blink. Afraid Jaemin would disappear if he did.

“And you let me expose myself ‒ expose these horrible, disgusting parts of me.” Renjun didn’t think any part of Jaemin was disgusting but he didn’t say that. “You let me tell you about everything and you lied. You lied constantly, over and over again and not one thing you’ve told me has been the truth, starting with your fucking name!

“You let me trust you. You‒ you,” Jaemin’s voice broke, swallowed by sorrow. “You let me _fall_ for you.” Renjun’s heart, where it had been broken before, now lay shattered in his chest. “And it was all a lie.”

“That wasn’t all a lie‒”

“You don’t get to speak,” Jaemin roared. “You don’t get to say shit when everything you’ve said to me since I’ve known you hasn’t been true. You had your chance to speak; now it’s mine.”

He breathed in deeply through his nose and met Renjun’s eyes. Renjun had to will himself to not recoil.

“I hate you,” Jaemin breathed out, so angry and true the words were barely audible but Renjun felt them stab into him as though they’d been screeched. “And I never want to see your face again. Stay the fuck away from me.”

Jaemin pushed past him, slamming into his shoulder and Renjun didn’t turn to look after him. He heard Jaemin’s footsteps dim as he got further and further away.

Renjun stared at the wall of the hotel hallway, his face wet with tears he didn’t have the right to cry and heart aching for a loss that was entirely his fault.

The memory of Jaemin’s words, the picture of his eyes haunted him as he shook with silent weeps. He wanted to run after him, throw himself at Jaemin’s feet and beg for forgiveness. Wanted to buy him the world, go back in time, create an alternate timeline where he could do right by Jaemin. He wanted Jaemin to smile again, even if it wasn’t at him. 

He wondered if his heart would ever mend. It was a ludicrous thought, because how could one boy he once hated have somehow come to mean so much to him?

He laughed bitterly, hysterically. Of course. That was why.

Jaemin Na: the boy he loved, who hated him.

  
  


Renjun knew his friends were confused.

They were bewildered when Jaemin, Donghyuck, and Jeno didn’t sit with them at lunch, when they all ignored Renjun as though he didn’t exist. When even Mark kept him at a distance. Renjun knew they wanted to ask, and he knew he owed them an explanation, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to open the wound when he’d only just sealed it enough to function in his day-to-day life.

Even as he spent his days feeling like a ghost in his own body.

He ignored his brother’s calls, turned his phone off entirely because after all that happened, he was still a coward.

He should have been prepared for his friends to give into their curiosity after almost a week of nothing but blank stares and distance from their new friends.

But he hadn’t even realised how much time had passed when he was stuck reliving that moment from after the gala over and over.

So when he entered his room on Friday night, exhaustion infused with his bones, he was shocked to see his friends sitting there, all with expectant looks on their faces. He was confused for a moment before cold realisation settled in his gut and he groaned.

He went to his bed and moved Chenle’s leg so there was space for him to fall on it.

“Not now, guys,” he begged, though it was muffled from where his face was pressed into the duvet. “Please.”

“Nope,” Yangyang said easily. “Tell us what’s going on.”

Renjun had been avoiding reality for so long, and now he’d been thrust into the depth of it and was still trying to run away. The thought would have made him laugh if he didn’t feel so utterly pathetic, if Jaemin hadn’t been as hurt as he did.

He looked up, moving only his eyes and not his head to see Chenle looking at him, knowing in his eyes. And maybe that helped, having someone who knew and wouldn’t abandon him when the truth came out. Maybe that was enough to get him to do something he hadn’t done in a long time and tell the truth.

He sat up and looked at his friends, and only hoped he’d still be able to call them that when he’d finished speaking.

“My name isn’t Injun Wei; it’s Renjun Huang.” He didn’t pause to gauge their reactions, too frightened that if he stopped he’d never be able to start again. So he kept speaking, telling them everything from the beginning. It was a jumbled mess of poorly remembered memories but he kept going. He didn’t want it to end, didn’t want to have to face the consequences of his words.

“And then he said he hated me and never wanted to see me again.” Renjun wiped his eyes for the umpteenth time. “And that’s about it.” He took a deep breath, and assumed their silence meant hatred. He looked down to avoid seeing the judgement he knew would be there. “I’m really sorr‒”

He was cut off when a pair of arms encircled him. He lent into Yangyang’s familiar embrace, even as felt undeserving of it.

“I can’t believe you’re fucking richer than the rest of us put together besides Chenle,” he said, voice thick with disbelief and maybe something else.

“I’m sorry.” After speaking for so long, Renjun was half-sure that was all he could say anymore. “I’m so sorry.”

More people joined the hug until all of them were there, holding him and hushing him with soothing voices. 

Renjun cried with the relief of undeserved forgiveness.

  
  


“Renjun Huang?” 

“As in _the_ Renjun Huang?”

“What the fuck?”

Word spread quickly, but Renjun didn’t take notice of the new stares or barely-whispered words. The people he cared about already knew, so these people and what they thought of him couldn’t hurt him. Not when the person he cared the most about hated him.

Nothing could hurt more than that.

He tried to talk to Jaemin, tried to get him to listen even as he knew it was cruel of him, knew that it was selfish. But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t continue to live his life being constantly rejected by the person who made him feel the most at home.

But Jeno and Donghyuck acted like gatekeepers, kept him away from Jaemin with cold words and even colder stares.

They had once told Renjun that he knew what would happen if he hurt Jaemin but the truth was that he didn’t.

It didn’t take long to find out.

It wasn’t the same as it had been when he and Jaemin had been enemies before, this was more personal, more designed to make him feel alone. This wasn’t just putting him on the bench in lacrosse or making him feel stupid in English, this was insults that hurt and cut to the bone.

And he took them all because they came from a place of love for Jaemin. And Renjun could relate to that.

Still, there was a sense he got that they were holding themselves back. Even with his status as a Huang newly restored, he had no doubt the two of them could ruin Renjun far beyond just hurtful words if they wanted to.

And there was a part of him that hoped it was because they still cared for him as a friend. And there was another, stupider, part of him that hoped it was because Jaemin still cared for him, and had asked them to not do anything too horrible.

It was stupid, but he hoped.

Because, and maybe he’d been imagining it, but that first day back at school after the gala, Donghyuck had glared at him from across the room, eyes black with murderous intent and had looked fully intent on marching over to Renjun and taking physical action. And Renjun wouldn’t have blamed him. But just as Donghyuck had stood up, Jaemin had placed a hand on his forearm, a pleading look on his face and Donghyuck had sat back down, eyes still boring into Renjun with the clear message that he wanted to kill him.

Because, from what Renjun knew of Donghyuck and Jeno and their bond with Jaemin, he knew they would have wanted to tear him apart. Piece by piece for how he had hurt their best friend/ But they hadn’t.

And Renjun knew them well enough that they never would have let that go. And Renjun hope he knew Jaemin well enough that Jaemin wouldn’t have wanted that.

He clung to that thought. It was all he had.

  
  


They arrived at the decathlon finals a day early to settle in. They were being held in west London, and the school put them up in a four star hotel with a room each. And Renjun had missed being rich, but he missed Jaemin more.

The journey there had been agonisingly awkward and when Renjun finally made it to his room, he near collapsed on his bed from the relief of finally being out of range of Donghyuck and his hateful glare.

A knock on his door reached his ears where he was lying face-down in his bed.

“Renjun,” came Jungwoo’s voice, soft and lilting, “team meeting in Jaemin’s room in five.”

“I’ll be there,” he called.

Five minutes to pull himself together and brace himself to see Jaemin again. He could do that.

Their final practice before the final, as all of their practices had been since the gala, was abysmal.

Jaemin refused to acknowledge it and no one else dared to say it aloud but everyone knew it. Jaemin was slipping. And that was dangerous for them all.

Jaemin was fumbling answers that Renjun _knew_ he knew, and he was slow at buzzing in and he was getting even more irritated than usual when he got an answer wrong. And whenever Renjun spoke, his face would cloud over and he’d become despondent for a question or so.

And no one wanted to say it, least of all Jaemin’s friends, but they all knew why. Renjun felt the all too familiar feeling of self-hatred creep into him.

When he finally called for the end of the session, Donghyuck moved from his seat at the end of the table to talk to Jaemin, loud enough that Renjun could hear from where he was trying his best to look like he couldn’t.

“Why don’t you just remove him from the team? He’s dragging you down.”

Renjun tried to pretend to be busy, tried to pretend each word didn’t cut into him with a sharp blade. Jungwoo gave him a sympathetic look but Renjun knew he wasn’t worthy of it.

“He’s still one of our best players,” Jaemin said. He sounded tired. “Better than me right now, anyhow. Maybe I should do us all a favour and remove myself,” he added, with a laugh so self-deprecating Renjun was hit with the desire to go to him and hold him and kiss away any insecurities.

As it was, he clenched his hands into fists, digging his nails into the palm of his hand.

“Shut up,” Donghyuck said. “You’re our captain.”

“Duckie’s right,” Jeno said. “We’d be nothing without you. Would have lost the first round easily.”

Jaemin smiled, and it was beautiful and lovely and it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Thanks guys.”

Renjun took that as his cue and left.

  
  


“Jacobin.”

“That is… correct! Congratulations to Chaucer Private School on advancing to the finals!”

Cheers rang throughout the venue on their side from the friends that had come to support them but Renjun paid them no mind as his eyes instantly searched for Jaemin.

Jaemin didn’t look happy in the slightest and Renjun didn’t blame him.

They had only just barely scraped a win, by the skin of their teeth.

Jaemin hadn’t performed to the best of his ability, and their entire team knew that. Renjun hoped that none of them blamed Jaemin for it, hoped they all knew it was his fault. Because Jaemin could lie and pretend all he wanted, but they all knew the truth.

Renjun knew his help wasn’t wanted so he stayed put even as Jaemin left the stage with a clearly fake smile on his face. He watched Jeno and Donghyuck follow after him. He breathed out, let some of the worry disperse into the air around him.

He trusted in Jeno and Donghyuck. Far more than he trusted in himself.

Renjun’s hands were shaking when he took his seat and he wasn’t the only one.

Yangyang shot him a thumbs up and mouthed something Renjun couldn’t understand from his place in the audience. Renjun tried to smile back, but found that he couldn’t will his face into the correct shape.

He took the pen on the table in his hand and began dismantling it the same way Jaemin had done back in the inter-house decathlon. He didn’t have to look over to know Jaemin was doing the same.

The moderator gave a short speech congratulating them for making it this far, something about dedication and hard work but it was obvious to everyone in the room that no one cared. Renjun itched with competitiveness and used it to force his worry for Jaemin to the back of his mind. The best way for him to help Jaemin was to help him win.

“Our first round is literature.”

Renjun didn’t let himself become deflated. He breathed in slowly. The game began.

They were behind. Geography had come and gone and Jaemin hadn’t been able to use it to gain momentum like he usually did. Anxiety gripped Renjun’s heart in a cold, tight hand and didn’t let go.

They only just about managed to keep the point gap manageable during the third and fourth rounds thanks to Jeno and Mark and their inhuman reaction speeds.

And, even though they were fighting tooth and nail, it was clear they were all dispirited. A sense of preemptive defeat lingered about the air around them, sank into their skin and their minds.

Renjun hated it.

“Now onto our fourth round: maths.”

Renjun squared his shoulders. Jaemin was usually their morale booster, and it was Renjun’s fault that he was out of commission so it was his duty to try his best to fill in the gap. And he knew he wouldn’t be able to ‒ not properly ‒ but if there was ever an opportunity for him to try, it was the maths round.

“Kruskal’s algorithm.”

“Correct again, Mr Huang.”

And with that, Renjun had pulled them even. He breathed out and chanced a glance to his left. Jaemin still wasn’t looking at him, eyes fixed on the scoreboard.

80-80

They kept more or less level through the fifth round now that the team had gained a little more optimism.

“We will now take a brief break,” said the moderator. “Well done to both of our teams so far.”

110-100

Jaemin left the stage immediately, disappearing out one of the back doors of the hall. Renjun watched as Jeno got up to go after him, something twisting in his gut. He weighed up his options in his head and decided on probably the stupider of the two.

He quickly stood up and placed a hand on Jeno’s shoulder. He met Jeno’s eyes when he turned.

“No,” Jeno said, firm. “Not a fucking chance in hell.”

Renjun had never heard Jeno curse that much and was keenly aware of all the eyes on them.

“Please.” Renjun had never begged before, but he found that he was doing it a lot for Jaemin.

“This entire thing is your fault in the first place.”

“Which is why I need to fix it. Please. Trust me.”

“You don’t get to ask for that.” Jeno lowered his voice as he spoke. “You don’t deserve that.”

“I know,” Renjun said, because he did. “But please at least trust that I care about him. You have to know that.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Jeno snapped reflexively. Then he went quiet for a moment, thinking about Renjun’s words.

Renjun tried to convey as much sincerity as he could. Because Jeno and Donghyuck were as much extensions of Jaemin as Jaemin was of them and to gain his trust, Renjun needed theirs.

“If you care about him so much, then why did you lie?” Jeno’s voice was filled with a reproach that could only stem from love.

“Because I was afraid of losing him.” He took a deep breath. “I love him, Jeno.” Jeno’s eyes went wide. “Believe me. Please. Please let me try to make amends.”

Renjun could see Jeno deliberate and he held his breath as Jeno decided on his verdict. He saw Jeno shoot a look to where Donghyuck was sat watching them, confused and angry.

“If you hurt him again‒”

Renjun sagged with relief. “Thank yo‒”

“Let me finish.” Renjun shut up. “If you hurt him again then nothing Jaemin says or your family name will protect you. Hyuck and I will ruin you.”

“I’d ruin myself if I did. I love him.”

Jeno sighed, but Renjun could see the way his lips wanted to twitch into a smile. “Don’t tell me that; tell him.”

Renjun nodded. “I will.”

Jaemin didn’t look up when Renjun entered the empty room he’d claimed as his own.

“Jen, I know what you’re going to say and I promise I’m trying but‒”

“I’m not Jeno.”

Jaemin’s head snapped up so quickly it almost gave Renjun whiplash just from watching.

“Why are you here?” Where Jaemin’s voice had been dejected before, it now dropped into something more aggressive. “You are literally the last person I want to speak to right now.”

“I know,” Renjun said, staying in the doorway to keep his distance and not crowd into Jaemin’s space.

“Then why are you here?” Jaemin hissed.

“We’re losing. We need our captain to be in his top form and he’s not.”

“And whose fault do you think that is, Renjun?” Jaemin said his name mockingly, and Renjun felt shame fill him but he pushed it down. This wasn’t about him.

“Take me off the team,” he said. “Put Hyuck in instead.”

“What?” Shock broke through the wall of anger. “What the fuck are you saying?”

“It’s my fault you can’t focus, so get rid of me. Besides, we’re already past the maths round so I don’t have much use anymore.”

“Jesus, Renjun,” Jaemin said, “I’m not getting rid of you; you’re one of our best players.”

“Why not?” Renjun pushed, still hoping. “It makes perfect logical sense.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Well, you need to do something.”

Jaemin stood up, angry. And Renjun almost gave himself away with a sigh of relief he only just managed to contain. Because an angry Jaemin was better than a despondent Jaemin. Anger stemmed from passion and Renjun needed Jaemin to have that right now.

“And what do you suggest?” Resentment dripped from Jaemin’s words and Renjun tried to ignore the way they pierced into his heart.

“I suggest you stop wallowing over a boy who never deserved you and start focusing all that hatred into winning the competition you’ve been preparing for for almost an entire year.” The words were heavy on Renjun’s tongue; they tasted like lead, but he needed Jaemin to hear the truth. “It’s not like you to get caught up over some pompous rich kid and forget about winning. You’re better than that.” _You’re better than me_.

“Don’t say that.” Jaemin’s voice was small. “You’re not just some pompous rich kid; I can’t just forget about you and focus on a stupid fucking decathlon.”

“Yes, you can. Don’t spend your time caring about someone who hurt you as much as I did.”

Jaemin laughed so self-deprecatingly Renjun wanted nothing more to go to him, hold him tight. But he couldn’t do that. Not when he was the cause for it.

“You sound just like Hyuck,” he said.

Renjun’s smile was pained. “You should listen to Hyuck. He knows what’s best for you.”

“You say that like I don’t.”

“Because I don’t think you do.” He didn’t let Jaemin’s icy glare deter him. “You push yourself too hard and you hang onto people who don’t deserve your attention.”

Jaemin’s voice was so impossibly weak it was barely there. “I can’t just let you go, Injun.”

Renjun didn’t think Jaemin had even noticed that he’d used that name. And, though he knew it was wrong, he revelled in the cadence of it as it fell from Jaemin’s lips.

“Yes, you can.”

“How can you know that?”

Renjun’s smile melted into something more genuine.

“Because you’re Jaemin Na. And that’s not me calling your title impressive, or saying that you have to uphold your family name or that you have to follow in Taeyong’s footsteps as a perfect person. That’s me saying that you are Jaemin Na, and you’ve defined what that means all by yourself.”

He thought of Sicheng, of the brother he’d been ignoring but was endlessly thankful to have.

“You’ve defined it to mean the most driven, hard-working, dedicated person I know. To be someone who cares about their friends with all their heart and then some more. To be someone who never loses because of how much effort he puts in.”

It was easy to think of things to say when he had thought them everyday for so long.

“You’re not a cocky rich kid flaunting around his excessive wealth; you’re a person who everyday overcomes insecurities and anxieties in his desperate pursuit of perfection without ever stopping to look in the mirror and realise that you’ve been that since day one.

“Jaemin Na is a name soaked in power but you, Jaemin Na ‒ the person. You took that name and made it your own, away from aristocracy and pressure. It’s your name far more than it’s your parents’.

“It’s a name I’ve learned to love even though I once hated whom it belonged to. And he hates me but I don’t care so long as he loves himself.”

A deep breath, a long pause.

“And you’re not about to lose all that you’ve defined yourself as because of some boy.”

Renjun was breathing heavily by the end of it. Jaemin was slack-jawed, staring at him with disbelief in his eyes. It was the slowest Renjun had ever seen his mind work, and was worried for a moment that he’d only damaged their decathlon chances even further.

It was silent for a long time. The air between them felt charged with Renjun’s own nervous energy, and dread grew in him more and more with each quiet second.

“You just love the name? Or the person, too?”

Renjun wanted to laugh. Because, of course, that was what Jaemin had focused on, soppy romantic that he was. But Jaemin’s voice was so small, so unsure and Renjun couldn’t laugh at his vulnerability.

“How could I not?”

Jaemin made a noise half-way between a sob and a laugh. “Say it properly.”

Renjun laughed as well, light-headed. “I love you, Jaemin.”

Jaemin didn’t say it back but that was okay because Renjun didn’t need him to.

“I still haven’t forgiven you,” Jaemin said, a touch petulantly, though here was still hurt there, more diluted than it had been before.

“I didn’t expect you to.” Renjun felt conviction flow through him stronger than it ever had before. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“But if you expect me to let you go after that, then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought you were.”

Jaemin was smiling, and that was enough, Renjun decided.

Jaemin stood up straight, and his face melted into the one Renjun recognised from his first day in England.

“Let’s go, Huang,” he said and Renjun felt his stomach flip over. “We’ve got a competition to win. Eton haven't got a chance in hell.”

The change in atmosphere the second they stepped back into the hall where the decathlon was being held was obvious.

Renjun watched Jaemin take his seat with a renewed confidence he had missed. He straightened his name plaque and looked into the crowd. It was one of his most admirable qualities, Renjun thought, the way Jaemin could naturally command a room.

The team noticed it, faces turning from confused to happy to determined within the blink of an eye. Renjun caught Jeno’s eye and nodded. They both faced the front again.

110-100

Resolution wafted through the air, spilling from their entire team in thick waves so strong Renjun was sure everyone in the hall could feel it. He felt it himself, as though someone had dowsed him in a bucket of ice water, made him alert and overly-aware of everything around him.

“We shall now commence the second half of the final of this year’s competition with our sixth round: history.”

Renjun smiled. He hadn’t spent hours helping Jaemin write essays for a subject Renjun wasn’t taking for them to fall behind in this round.

He looked at Jaemin only to find him already looking. They both smiled before facing the front again.

“In what year did the Qing Dynasty ‒ often known as the last imperial dynasty ‒ of China end?”

Renjun’s fingers flew to his buzzer, mind desperately searching for a distant memory of elementary school history lesson buried somewhere at the back of his mind.

A buzzer went off but it wasn’t his.

All eyes in the hall were on Jaemin when he answered.

“1912.”

“Correct, Mr Na.”

110-105

Cheers erupted through the hall, Donghyuck the loudest of them all.

Renjun felt giddy. Jaemin was back.

Renjun’s buzzer sounded an instant before the opposition.

“Queen Anne of Gloria.”

“That is right, Mr Huang.”

125-135

And that concludes our history round. Moving onto current affairs.”

Renjun could almost hear Donghyuck whine from the audience but couldn’t find in himself to feel bad. They were winning. His heart thumped excitedly in his chest.

Jungwoo cleared up during the classics round, knowing about Greek myths in more detail than anyone else by far. Every time he answered, there would be a brief moment where he smiled privately to himself before he would turn abashed as Yukhei’s shouts would travel over every other noise as he congratulated his boyfriend.

The penultimate round was art, and Renjun thought back to all the art books Sicheng had bought him when he’d first told his brother that he wanted to be an artist. He thought of Dejun flying him to Paris to visit the art museums there for his birthday one year.

He had fun that round.

215-215

They entered the last round neck and neck. Renjun could barely hear the moderator talk about how high the tension was with his heartbeat so loud in his ears. His leg was shaking under the desk and his breaths were rapid but he forced himself to stay cool, keep a level head.

He couldn’t let himself get lost in his nerves. Not when he had something to prove and a boy he loved to impress.

“The final round is general knowledge.”

Renjun had to suppress a snort because of course it was. The most vital and tense round of the entire decathlon and they decided to make it on the flimisiet, most loosely defined topic of them all.

The sentiment seemed to be felt by every single one of the competitors, including Eton. General knowledge was more about luck than skill, and was generally overlooked as a topic, thought of as unintelligent. It wasn’t a consensus Renjun disagreed with.

“What type of flower can be used to help clean radioactive soil?”

Mark hit his buzzer before Renjun had even processed the absurdity of the question. He saw Mark look at Donghyuck before answering, and Renjun knew immediately what the answer was. He smiled.

“Sunflowers.”

“Correct, Mr Lee.”

215-220

The first points of a round were always the most important.

230-235

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

“Correct, Mr Ainsworth.”

235-235

240-235

Renjun’s throat was tight.

240-240

Sweat clung to his hairline.

240-245

His breathing grew rapid.

245-245

His heart stopped in his chest.

“How many digits does the largest known prime number have?”

Renjun’s fingertips slammed down on his buzzer so hard his fingers tingled when he pulled them away. He didn’t care.

“Seventeen million, four hundred and twenty five thousand, one hundred and seventy.”

He felt his team take a collective breath.

The moderator paused to increase the suspense and Renjun hated him for that.

“Correct!”

The crowd roared.

245-250

“This is our final question,” the moderator said when the crowd had settled down. “If Eton answer correctly, we will go to tie-break and if Chaucer answer correctly, they will be declared our winners.”

Renjun could barely think straight. They were so close. So close.

“Approximately, how many farms are there in the US state of Oregon?”

A buzzer had cut through the silence left by the question quicker than Renjun could think _what_.

Jaemin looked confident, but Renjun knew he was terrified when all the attention fell to him. Renjun couldn’t do anything now but believe in Jaemin even if Jaemin couldn’t believe in himself. He was content to sit back and watch the boy he loved win them the competition.

“Thirty-five thousand, four hundred and thirty nine.”

Renjun whipped his eyes back to the moderator.

The moderator looked at his cue-card and then back at Jaemin a few times.

He laughed. “That's actually a far more specific number than I have written on my cards, Mr Na.”

Renjun's heart leapt into his throat.

“You didn't give me a number of significant figures, sir.”

The moderator laughed again and resentment brewed in Renjun's gut at how long he was dragging this out. He could tell he wasn't alone from the disgruntled looks on near everyone's faces.

The moderator looked at Jaemin and smiled.

“You are correct. Congratulations, Mr Na.”

245-255

Renjun remembered how elated he felt, how his own cheers were lost to the din of the hall as the entirety of the school’s support system devolved into a chaotic euphoria. He remembered Jungwoo pulling him into a hug, babbling something unintelligible in his ear too fast for him to understand.

But most of all he remembered how Jaemin stayed impossibly still in his chair. He remembered the look of utter joy that came over his face, how his smile shone so brightly on his face Renjun was half-sure it should be considered a hazard. How at peace Jaemin looked.

Renjun was so far beyond happy.

The award ceremony passed in a blur, Jaemin held the large trophy with such careful reverence and such a bewitching smile on his face Renjun felt himself fall a little further.

Chaucer’s celebrations didn’t let up until after midnight, as they took over one of the function rooms in the hotel to throw a party. An actual party, not a gala. Renjun didn’t get a chance to see Jaemin because he spent the night being swarmed by either his own friends or other schoolmates who were congratulating him. He hugged so many people, he was sure the structure of his spine had been changed forever.

Yangyang didn’t leave his side the entire time, sticking to him like a particularly friendly, drunk tumour. Renjun really loved his friend.

He had fun, but his mind was elsewhere and he thought his friends knew that as they let him go with a not overly excessive amount of whining.

In hindsight, Renjun should have really expected Donghyuck and Jeno to be with Jaemin, as inseparable as they were. But when he knocked on Jaemin’s door at two in the morning, red-faced from the heat of the party and still drunk on the jubilation of their win, and it opened to reveal Donghyuck’s face contorted into a scowl beneath a face mask, he squealed.

There was laughter from inside the room. Donghyuck’s face darkened even more.

“Fuck off, Huang,” he said. “We’re celebrating. Alone.”

“Duckie, let him in,” Jaemin’s voice called, and Renjun almost felt his heart give out.

“Nana! You can’t take it off yet; you have to wait fifteen minutes,” Jeno scolded.

Renjun knew Jaemin was rolling his eyes without seeing him. “Hyuck.”

Donghyuck growled. “Fine,” he said, stepping aside to let Renjun through. “But I’m not happy about it.”

“When are you ever?”

Renjun stepped into the room, feeling awkward. If Jaemin hadn’t forgiven him, his best friends certainly hadn’t and walking into their room felt like walking into a lion’s den.

Jaemin was lounging on the bed with Jeno, a laptop between them. Jeno was also wearing a face mask, and tartan pyjamas. Renjun smiled when he saw that they matched Jaemin and Donghyuck’s, though they were all different colours.

The trophy sat on the bedside table, tall and proud.

It was quiet for a moment.

“Guys,” Jaemin whined. Cute, Renjun thought. “Leave. I can handle myself.”

Jeno stood up slowly, eyes not leaving Renjun the entire time. He was, admittedly, much scarier when his face had been replaced by a blank white mask.

Donghyuck and Jeno continued to glare at Renjun until they left the room. The door shut behind them and Renjun let out the breath he’d been holding.

Renjun gathered his courage, every emotion, every piece of remorse he’d felt over the last few weeks and compiled them into one, and hoped Jaemin would hear the weight of it behind his words.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice broke but he kept speaking anyway. Jaemin deserved an apology and he deserved a proper one; it was the least Renjun could offer him. “I’m so so incredibly sorry for lying to you. I started the lie because I had to and then I kept it because I was scared.”

“What were you scared of?” Jaemin’s voice wasn’t judging, only curious, and Renjun sobbed harder because he Jaemin was too good for him.

Jaemin gestured for him to sit down on the bed and Renjun did, as far away from Jaemin as he could.

“Losing you,” he admitted. “I knew that once you knew I had lied to you, you would be hurt and you would hate me and I didn’t think I could survive that. So I was selfish and I kept lying and I started to wish ‒ pray ‒ that I was really Injun Wei if it meant that you would keep liking me.

“But I lied and I hurt you and I am so, endlessly sorry for that. You trusted me so much, and told me so many of your secrets while all the while I was hiding my literal identity from you and I‒” he broke off to breathe in and he choked on the air as he did so, “‒I was just so scared you would leave me when you were the person who had made me feel at home so far away and I hurt you and you hate me.”

He wasn’t making any sense now. Words tumbled from his mouth, messy and disorganised but he hoped Jaemin would be able to know. Renjun had never been one for words, but he hoped he could at least convey his feelings.

“I did hate you,” Jaemin said. His voice was carefully neutral, but Renjun still felt the words rip into him. “I did. And you were right. I was so, _so_ angry. And I never wanted to see you again because I was embarrassed and I felt stupid and I felt betrayed.”

Each word tore a new wound, but Renjun said nothing.

“Was all of it a lie?” Jaemin’s voice was breathy, as though he were afraid of hearing the answer.

Renjun hated that he was the one who had done that to him, had made him scared when he’d once been fearless.

“No,” Renjun’s answer was easy, solid. The truth. “My name and my wealth were lies but nothing else was. Trust me when I say that I didn’t want to fall in love with you but it happened anyway.”

Jaemin made a small noise of surprise. “God, Renjun,” he said, “you can’t just drop that on someone.”

“But you already knew?” Renjun was confused.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not still absolutely earth-shattering.”

“Sorry.” They both knew he wasn’t talking about his confession.

“You’re forgiven,” Jaemin said, like it was easy when they both knew just how difficult it was.

“What?”

“You’re forgiven,” Jaemin repeated. “You lied then you apologised so you’re forgiven. Besides, I owe you a lot.” Jaemin’s gaze was faraway. “And I think I was hurt a lot because you meant so much to me, but I think the reason I can forgive you this easily is because… I think it's because I loved you, too.”

“Loved?” And Renjun would have been content if that were the case, because he knew he didn't deserve more.

Jaemin shook his head.

“Now, I know. I love you. I love you, Renjun.”

“I love you, too,” Renjun said through tears.

“I know.”

“Shut up.”

They both stood up at the same time, and went towards each other. Like there was some force between them, urging them closer together.

It was bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss to be forgiven when you didn’t deserve it.

Jaemin was compassionate and kind and wonderful and Renjun knew he’d fallen in love with the right person. The perfect person.

Jaemin splayed his fingers out beneath Renjun’s chin, used his other hand to frame his face as Renjun’s hands came up to rest on Jaemin’s chest. Jaemin leaned in, and Renjun did the same, his eyelids fluttering closed as he pushed himself up onto his tiptoes.

Jaemin’s lips tasted like a miracle. Because that’s what forgiveness was. That’s what love was.

That’s what Jaemin was.

Jaemin pulled away to look Renjun in the eyes, vulnerable and wide, and Renjun almost wept with how lucky he was to have been let back into Jaemin’s life like this.

“Don't ever lie to me again.” A plea.

“Never,” Renjun whispered. A promise.

He surged forward, and caught Jaemin's lips in another kiss before he pulled away again, looking Jaemin right in the eyes so he could see he was being sincere.

“I promise,” he said, just to make sure Jaemin knew.

But of course Jaemin knew.

Jaemin Na: the boy he loved, who loved him, too.

  
  
  


“Lob it, Huang!” Yukhei roared.

And Renjun did just that, launching the ball up the pitch as far as he physically could.

There was a minute left on the clock and the scores were tied. Championship game; they couldn’t lose. Not when nearly the entire school and their mothers had gathered to watch. Renjun heard Dejun and Kunhang screech his name like a pair of deranged, strangled cats.

The ball sailed through the air and landed in the dirt on the other side of the pitch. Both teams’ players bounded after it, but Yangyang was the quickest of them all.

He swept it into the basket of his lacrosse stick and spun around on the heel of his foot to be met with the sight of one of their opponents barrelling towards him. He just about managed to send the ball to where Donghyuck was standing yelling his name. 

Renjun smiled as the ball landed neatly in Donghyuck’s basket and let his shoulders slump down. He could relax now.

Donghyuck had the ball and Jaemin and Jeno had slipped into their favourite positions at the wings. It was over for the other team.

Donghyuck carried it up the pitch, feigning a pass to Yukhei so convincing that even Yukhei almost fell for it. Instead, Donghyuck span around and mid-spin lobbed it sideways to Jeno who caught it like he’d been expecting it.

Jeno carried it the rest of the way up the pitch using a series of rapid passes back and forth between him and Jaemin. They lulled the other team into a sort of pattern, and, just as it looked like the other team had caught on and were about to intercept, Jaemin passed it to Donghyuck as he ran past Jaemin.

From then, all anyone could do was watch as Donghyuck buried the ball in the back of the net with an aggressive power cry.

The whistle went and Renjun threw his stick to the ground as cheers inundated the air. Renjun ran straight to Jaemin, who had done the same, and Renjun threw his arms around his boyfriend’s neck. Jaemin slung his own arms around Renjun’s waist and pulled him flush against his body.

“National champions, baby,” he whispered, and all of Renjun’s organs did somersaults where they lay in his body. Jaemin was wholly too liberal with pet names, and entirely too uncaring for how weak they made Renjun.

He leaned in and the world dissolved around them when their lips touched.

Their kiss only lasted for a moment before Jaemin was being pulled away by their teammates and thrown up in the air. Renjun wasn't upset, though. He'd have plenty of opportunities in the future.

He chanted Jaemin’s name along with them, laughing at the redness rising on Jaemin’s cheeks.

Then there were arms wrapping around him again and he was being pulled, laughing into the chests of his friends who had flown all the way from China to watch him play a game they’d never heard of before.

And Renjun thought that, for all he’d done wrong in his life, if he’d gotten one thing right, it was his friends.

He looked around the field.

Sicheng was smiling brightly, speaking with Taeyong and Doyoung as they all watched the celebrations with fond amusement. All the friends he’d made in England as the result of some strange punishment. He laughed again, unsure if he’d ever really stopped and hugged Dejun and Kunhang tighter.

They’d won. Renjun had been winning a lot since Jaemin had forgiven him.

The thought made him giddy.

  
  


They pushed the tables in Kun's restaurant together so they formed one big rectangle right in the centre of the floor. Kun was talking animatedly with Taeyong and Doyoung as the younger ones struggled with arranging the tables.

Kun hugged Taeyong tightly and then took him by the hand to lead him into the kitchen. Renjun turned to Jaemin questioningly only to find him already looking at him.

“Taeyong really likes to cook,” Jaemin said, folding a napkin. “He’s going to help Kun out.”

The food, even though Renjun had eaten it at almost every single one of his shifts, was still as delicious as the first time he’d tried it. And it was even better now that he was surrounded by the family he’d had to leave home to find, who had helped him create a new one. A better one.

“Chenle, I swear to all that is holy if you take the last piece of pork again, I will skewer you!”

“Try it, you oaf!”

Jaemin’s hand held onto Renjun’s for the entire dinner. It was difficult to eat with one hand but Renjun didn’t mind.

“Kunhang stop scheming with Yangyang! Who let these two sit next to each other?”

“What are your intentions with my brother?” 

Renjun guessed that Jaemin was getting a very similar talk from Sicheng elsewhere.

“Don’t hurt him again.”

“I’d rather die.”

Taeyong was scary. But the thought of hurting Jaemin again was so much more so, and Taeyong seemed satisfied when he told him this, the iciness melting off of his face as he pulled him close.

“You make him so happy, Renjun.”

  
  
  


It was _their_ place now. The windowsill at the end of the second-wave Romantic poetry aisle.

They sat there, Jaemin laying on his front, nose in a book they had to read for English and Renjun with his sketchbook on his lap, lazily sketching Jaemin’s side profile.

Jaemin was a special sort of beautiful. One Renjun could never hope to recreate on paper, no matter how many times he tried. An effervescent, natural sort of beauty. The kind that seemed unreal, impossible. The kind that left Renjun breathless every time he saw him, even though he saw him everyday of his life. Renjun hoped he never stopped seeing him.

There was rain hitting the window beside them, the tapping rhythmic and soothing. The water droplets dripped gently down the glass, creating tiny beads of shadows that fell onto Jaemin’s face as he read.

There was something calming yet unsettling about sitting so close to a storm but still being safe and warm.

“Stop staring, creep,” Jaemin said without looking up.

Renjun cocked a smile. “I have to look at you to draw you.”

“Like you couldn’t do that from memory by now.” Jaemin looked at him coyly through his lashes.

Renjun didn’t say anything to that, mainly because it was true.

Jaemin looked back down at his book one last time before he snapped it shut. He sat up, and leaned against the wall next to Renjun. Renjun automatically moved closer to him, tucking himself into Jaemin’s side as Jaemin’s arm came down to rest on his shoulders.

“You’re so talented, Injunnie,” he said, an awe to his voice that made Renjun flush red. “Much better than the guy who did our family portrait.”

Renjun laughed. “You still haven’t shown me that.”

“It will hurt your eyes, baby; I know it will.”

“It won’t if you’re in it.”

Jaemin smiled, eyes crinkling in happiness. Renjun felt his heart seize.

“You’d probably want to fight him for what he did to my face. You do love it after all.”

“I like it better when it’s not saying stupid things.”

Jaemin pretended to gasp, faking hurt.

“I knew you were only with me for my looks.”

Renjun giggled because the idea was ludicrous. Jaemin’s gaze softened.

Sometimes Renjun wondered if he deserved it. For Jaemin to look at him like that. Because Jaemin looked at him with nothing but love. Soppy and saccharine, like Renjun was worth the world and more. 

Renjun knew he wore that same look whenever he looked at Jaemin.

But it made Renjun blanch with the feeling of inadequacy. It was a lot of pressure: to be the perfect Jaemin Na’s boyfriend. And Renjun felt like he couldn’t match up to it, not when he had such a history of messing things up and making mistakes and hurting the people he cared about.

But then Jaemin would do what he always did, and sense that insecurity, and make better just by existing.

And he took the sketchbook off of Renjun’s lap, folded it closed and placed it down next to the window. And he leant in, close, a breath away from Renjun’s face and looked at Renjun with that same look he always did and Renjun was sure his heart stopped beating.

“I love you, Injunnie,” he said.

And the words washed over Renjun like a warm wave in the summertime on a beach in a distant land.

“I love you, too,” the words slipped from his lips like they were the only things he knew how to say.

Jaemin pressed a kiss against Renjun's lips and the sounds of rain faded away into blurry white noise. It was chaste, innocent. Not their first kiss, but gentle in a way that made it feel as though it were.

The kiss of two boys falling in love for the first time, learning about the depth of the feeling alongside learning about each other. Exploring the new doors it opened, hand in hand. Exploring each other and themselves. Together.

The kiss of two people who had once thought they were unlovable, but loved each other more than the moon loved the sun, chasing it around the earth.

Lightness filled Renjun's heart and bubbled up and out of his throat as laughter.

Jaemin's look was confused but affectionate when he raised an eyebrow in a silent question.

Renjun shook his head, still laughing. “I'm just happy. I'm so happy.”

Jaemin smiled, true and beautiful.

He leaned in again, and took the breath from Renjun's lungs with a kiss, deeper, more passionate than the last. An unspoken promise, a wordless act of adoration, and a moment marked in time for the two of them to remember together.

  
  


England was pretty shitty, all hills and rain and Shanghai wasn't much better, with its noise and pollution and expectation.

But tucked away into this private corner of the world, with the boy who had become his universe, Renjun decided none of it mattered. None of it could matter when Jaemin was with him. As Renjun Huang or Injun Wei or no one at all, Renjun was starting to trust that Jaemin loved him.

And Renjun had been called a lot of names; they both had. Dickhead, scholarship, rich kid, spoiled, disappointing, disgraceful. But who cared what they were to the world? All that mattered was what they were to each other.

And no matter what name he used, no matter how much money there was in his bank account, Renjun trusted that he loved Jaemin. Falling in love with Jaemin had been so very difficult, but being in love with him was the most natural thing in the world.

Because Renjun had been a lot of things before he'd come to England, but he thought that he would give them all up if it meant he could be Jaemin's love.

Jaemin Na: his everything, found amongst the shitty hills of England. His rival, his confidante, and his love. 

Jaemin Na: the boy who had saved him, whom Renjun had saved in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic was an absolute bitch of a thing to get done mainly because i was incredibly stupid and didn't actually start writing it until november and thusly it is the result of about a month's worth of intense writing sprints and 'oh it's not gonna be that long i'll be fine' hahaha what a fool i was 
> 
> also i'm sorry if the conflict resolution at the end feels rushed, i just really wanted to get this in before the deadline so i couldn't flesh it out as much as i wanted to
> 
> another huge final thank you to admin tea and my prompter and to you, dear reader for muddling your way through this tale of angsty rich boys and their problems
> 
> anyway i really hope you enjoyed if you made it all this way to the end  
> please validate me by leaving kudos and comments <3
> 
> make sure to check out "en garde" (part two of the series) it has a bonus scene !! 
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/whatisanult)  
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/whatisanult)


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